Liz Howes' Art Project at Leeukop Prison, Christmas Lunch and HIV/AIDS Education in Harare

Last Week

We had a much anticipated talk by Liz Howes on the art initiative she has started at Leeuwkop Prison.  She told us a lot about what the prisoners had done and how the initial group had grown as well as showing some of the art works produced. 
She also gave the impression that it wasn't a particularly easy environment in which to work but that success had really been, in a large part, by the encouragement of individual prisoners who had an interest in art.
I did wonder what the initial reason was to introduce art classes and where the motivation came from and also what the system was that you have to go through, not only to do something in prisons but also just how to get in the door.  Unfortunately, time was limited and we can only applaud Liz for what she is doing.
 Prity Narotam who is involved in educational projects in prisons also attended.

This Week
It's the Christmas Lunch at Parkview Golf Club....the bar is for your own account.  If you haven't booked yet then get hold of Les Short asap.

Women gain skills and self-worth

Stella Dongo; Rotary Club of Highlands, Zimbabwe

In a nation challenged by high unemployment and one of the largest populations living with HIV/AIDS in the world, Stella Dongo, along with Carolyn Schrader of the Rotary Club of Denver Mile High, Colorado, has led the way in providing training, education, and hope to women and youth in need. 

The two women’s Rotary clubs partnered in 2003 to start HIV/AIDS education programs in poor Harare communities, funded by Rotary Foundation grants. But when the Rotarians surveyed program participants, they found that an even more pressing need was job skills.

The two women’s Rotary clubs partnered in 2003 to start HIV/AIDS education programs in poor Harare communities, funded by Rotary Foundation grants. But when the Rotarians surveyed program participants, they found that an even more pressing need was job skills.

“The women we serve wanted to find ways to put food on the table and send their children to school,” says Dongo, a recently retired business executive and a 2015 Rotary Global Woman of Action.

In 2009, Community Empowerment in Zimbabwe was launched with a $330,000 Rotary 3-H grant to fund four years of job and business skills training for women and youth. In 2014 the clubs received a global grant to support advanced business and computer training for women, and another global grant in 2016 helped them expand their efforts in additional communities.

Today, the group is equipped to train about 500 women at a time. “When we started the program, these women were depressed and helpless,” Dongo says. “Now they have a sense of self-worth and pride. They see themselves as being able to stand on their own feet.”

The AGM, Our Embryo Rotary Club in Brixton, Art at Leeukop Prison and a Paediatrician.

Last Week

The AGM is over and went without a hitch other than our inability to find a President for next Rotary Year.
In terms of the Constitution if no-one comes forward then Lyn will have to continue for a second year and maybe a third and so ad infinitum.
I'm sure that won't be a problem.








The embryo Rotary Club we are busy working at in Brixton decided to have an information table at the Brixton Holiday Market.
You know what a wet and cold day last Saturday was so everyone decamped to the Brixton NG Kerk Hall so the attendance was much reduced!
They were very happy with the result  and found it most encouraging.
They have been collecting clothing for the Rainbow Children's' Village in Westdene and have discovered that many of their needs they are able to assist with despite not being able to raise money.



















We gave them some of our old banners to add colour to the table and they also had pamphlets to give to interested people.







This Week

 Elizabeth Howes and Joan Sainsbury are both involved in an art initiative for long-term prisoners at Leeukop Prison near Fourways.  I know nothing about it beyond that.

This week they will be talking about the project and how it is developing.

Christmas Lunch
Don't forget to book with Les Short.

After overcoming a tough childhood, paediatrician Ramon Resa is helping to raise a new generation of kids

At three years old, an age when most toddlers are being assessed on how high they can count or how well they can recite their ABCs, Ramon Resa faced a different standard of measurement: how much cotton he could pile up in the farm fields of central California.  

And for many years, as he harvested cotton, walnuts, or oranges, Resa felt that he didn’t measure up. That feeling was reinforced by some who might have been his mentors and guides: Even though he graduated at the top of his eighth-grade class, he was told to let a white classmate give the valedictory speech. A school counselor tried to shunt him into wood shop instead of algebra.

But Resa persevered. Today, to visit him at work, you’ll walk through a door labeled Dr. Ramon Resa. A Rotarian and a pediatrician in Porterville, Calif., he spends his days in an office not far from the tiny box of a house where he grew up among 14 relatives.  

From farmworker to pediatrician

At work, Resa moves among four exam rooms, sometimes seeing more than 50 patients in a day: a three-year-old suffering from allergies, a two-year-old in for a checkup, a 10-year-old who hurt his thumb playing sports. Resa tickles a child lightly as he checks a throat or belly, switching from English to Spanish as needed. “I can out-stare you,” he jokes with a determined boy who has a sinus infection. 

“He teases the babies and the moms, and he builds their confidence up, ” says his office manager, Shirley Rowell, who has worked with Resa since he arrived in Porterville in 1985 with his newly minted medical degree. The children energize him, bringing out his jovial nature, but he’s also gentle and caring. When C-section newborns were moved from surgery to the maternity ward, Rowell recalls, Resa always carried them in his arms and talked to them. He never used the transport carts. “Of course it was against protocol,” Resa says. “But if I have a chance to bond with the baby, I will.”

In his own childhood, doctors were called only for the most severe ailments. Resa was the fifth child born to a mother barely out of her teens herself, and he never knew his father. He and two brothers were sent to live with their grandparents: The kids crowded in with “Ama” and “Apa,” uncles, aunts, and cousins, sleeping on mattresses on the floor and sharing one bathroom. Goats, pigs, and chickens lived in a side yard. Everyone had to pitch in.

By the time he was seven or eight, he felt he was “no longer a child,” Resa wrote in his 2010 memoir, Out of the Fields. He was a worker who was paid 3 cents a pound for cotton. He tried to prove his worth by outworking people much older than he was. But alcohol, fights, and other stressors were all around him, and his feelings of isolation, inadequacy, and resentment grew. By the start of high school, Resa began to feel a debilitating depression that robbed him of the joy of his scholastic and athletic achievements. He found himself dreading the bad things he was sure were to come. But he had brains and determination, and he vowed to succeed.

Research has shown that aspirations and resolve play a role in resilience. Supportive role models do, too. Several key people saw promise in the young student and encouraged him: his fourth-grade teacher. A woman in the school district office. And his neighbors Jim and Susan Drake. Jim Drake was a principal aide to César Chávez, but Resa didn’t learn about his role in the labour movement until years later.

Ernest Moreno, a friend since childhood who also grew up in a farmworker family, has often thought about why he and Resa succeeded when others did not. “You had to think you were special and didn’t belong in that environment,” says Moreno, who runs an executive search firm in Illinois. “You had to have friends who were like you” – Moreno recalls the many Friday nights he and Resa spent playing board games such as Risk – “and you had to want it.”

A turning point: University of California, medical school, and Rotary

Resa’s first exposure to Rotary came when good grades earned him a club-sponsored trip to see the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was his first trip anywhere. 

As a teenager, he became aware of the advantages some of his classmates had: tutoring and private lessons, vacations, college and career expectations. But when a tennis coach offered him free private lessons, Resa turned him down. He had to work; his family needed the money. During his junior year in high school, he had to take a break from the cross-country team because his knees were so sore from kneeling to harvest walnuts. He was relieved when he got a letter jacket anyway, feeling sure that it would compel other students to see him “as a real person and not as a nobody.”

Although Resa qualified for the University of California system, no one at his high school informed him about it. Instead, he says, he and other farmworkers were pointed toward vocational classes at the local community college – until recruiters from the University of California Santa Cruz Educational Opportunities Program showed up.

Early in his freshman year at UCSC, Resa met an artist named Debbie Binger, and she has been his partner ever since – through medical school at UC Irvine, parenthood, all the ups and downs of life. The couple married and settled in California’s Central Valley, and Resa joined the Rotary Club of Porterville. In 1990, he became its president.

Yet he still couldn’t kick those childhood feelings of inadequacy. “I didn’t belong in front of these people,” he says. “I felt like a simple farmworker boy pretending to be a doctor.”

But he didn’t feel at home among his family anymore, either. “He went through a period where he didn’t fit in either place,” says Debbie. She eventually persuaded him to see a therapist for his depression. That, combined with religion, helped him to shed his bitterness and resentment and to understand that his family had done the best they could for him.

Revealing his childhood

At the end of 1990, a freeze devastated the Central Valley citrus industry and caused nearly $1 billion in damage. Rotarians, Resa says, understood what the disaster meant to growers, who were their fellow community leaders. But Resa also understood what the freeze meant for the farmworkers – at least 100,000 lost their jobs – and for their families. He knew that his Rotary club could help.  

But first, he would need to tell them his story. 

“So at the podium, I told my story of going without food, relying on donations, and going to bed hungry,” he says. “I was ashamed of the way I grew up. I didn’t tell Rotary about it until I wanted to help get the farmworkers food.”

His fellow Rotarians responded immediately. Contributions poured in to help the farmworker families get by. Ken Boyd, then governor of District 5230, who was at that meeting, had had no idea about the childhood his friend had endured. He spread the word to all 44 clubs in his district at that time.

Today, Resa tells his story all over the country – to teenagers and Rotary members, to teachers and migrant worker advocates, at the Rotary Youth Leadership Awards and at medical schools. He wrote a memoir, and a documentary film about his life is being produced.

But he still hates speaking in public – at least until it’s over. And then he loves it, because every time, he says, at least one person comes up to him with a story of resilience: a childhood spent in a crack house or with a severe learning disability. A stutter like the one Resa had.

“He affects kids by letting them know they can do what they want,” Boyd says. “And when you believe it, you really can.”

Nina Clancy, another former district governor, is among those who encourage Resa to keep on telling his story. “I’ve never heard anyone so courageous, so inspiring,” she says. “He has a zest for life that couldn’t be stamped out.”  

Accepting the past, and moving on  

At home, the Resas’ two children are now grown: Marina is an actor in Los Angeles, and Joshua is a fellow in paediatric oncology. Resa, meanwhile, is not-so-patiently waiting to become a grandfather. At his Rotary meeting, he jokingly bemoans his fellow members’ success – at acquiring grandchildren. At work, he holds an infant and says, “Can I keep him?”

But for many years, Resa kept his other relatives at a distance. Many of his family members were surprised by parts of his memoir; some remember things differently. Some told him Out of the Fields deepened their understanding of the family and of him. His uncle Esmael, one of the kids in his childhood home, says, “I felt like he slapped me, I was so shocked. I thought I knew everything about him.”

On one recent evening, some 20 members of the family gather at Round Table Pizza in Visalia, taking over two large tables for some boisterous storytelling and catching up. Tales of how hard they worked get the loudest laughs, but when asked if those experiences were funny at the time, there’s a unanimous chorus of “No!”

But even as a child, Resa was struck by the beauty of his surroundings: “One thing I liked about picking oranges is how spectacular the groves looked,” he says. Driving past the fields where he once worked, through the blocks of houses where he spent his childhood, and past produce-packing houses along streets with names such as Olive and Orange, Resa points out the snow-topped mountains in the distance, the stands of walnut trees, and the fruit-heavy citrus groves extending to the horizon. 

“My biggest regret is not going back and inspiring the next generation of my family,” he says. “I didn’t destroy the bridge. I just didn’t cross over it very often.” Fiercely protective of his children, he kept them away from relatives who struggled with drugs or gangs. 

But those bonds are being mended. He stops one morning at his sister Rosa’s house. Inside, he helps himself to homemade tortillas, potatoes, and chorizo. “I still don’t know anything that tastes better than scooping a fresh corn tortilla into the kettle for a mouthful of hot chili with its iron taste from the pot, especially on a cold, crisp winter day,” he says.

These days, Resa can hold on to the best of his memories without any bitter taste.

A Social Meeting, Women's Rights, the AGM and Rotary partners with the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness

Last Week

 It was a very Social Meeting and we all just enjoyed chatting to each other plus a few odd jokes.

These meetings are important because we seldom get the chance to talk to each other as the formalities and the guest speaker take up the whole hour of the meeting.

Fortunately the pizza saves us from a fate worse than death....well, death.

 This Week
It's the Annual General Meeting for the Rotary Year 2016 - 17.  I will send out the President's Report tomorrow so that you don't have to listen to me droning on.
Lyn's major concern is that we do not have a President Elect this year or anyone lurking in the shadows for the following year.
It really is bad policy for a club of our size, roughly 40 members, to have to ask a Past President to do it again.  It's a year, it's not a Hastings Banda President for Life and the club is very supportive so don't be shy in coming forward.
It reflects very badly on the club at District and International level if we have nobody.  I know that there are all sorts of reasons why you cannot be President but rather look on the positive side. Look at the support you have from the club, the pride that you have in being President of our club when you interact with other Rotarians and Presidents from other clubs in terms of what we achieve as a club.  There are very few clubs in the District that are able to do what we do.  Most important of all it is really is Service above Self in the situation the club finds itself at present when our President Elect resigned from the club at the beginning of the Rotary Year.

Christmas Lunch Friday 8th December

Don't forget to book with Les Short.....I'm one to talk as I haven't done it myself yet....I will do so before you get this issue of the Ramble!

Rotary partners with the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness

EVANSTON, IL (August 7, 2017) — About 80 percent of the world's 285 million visually impaired people have treatable eye diseases, according to the World Health Organization. Rotary and the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) aim to promote eye health to underserved communities.   

Under the one-year partnership signed today by Rotary International General Secretary John Hewko and Vice President of IAPB Victoria Sheffield, Rotary clubs can partner with IAPB member agencies to provide access to continuous eye care and blindness prevention services such as eye exams, cataract screenings and treatment, and diabetic eye examinations and follow-up services. 

Victoria Sheffield, vice president of International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness, and John Hewko, Rotary International general secretary, sign the partnership agreement.

IAPB champions the belief that in the 21st century no one should have to live with avoidable blindness or sight loss,” said Rotary General Secretary John Hewko. “Rotary also sees global health as a core priority. With IAPB’s expertise, and the power of Rotary’s volunteer network, we will strengthen our ability to transform the lives of millions of people who live with a visual impairment.” 

"The impact of blindness prevention efforts is lasting and has a palpable effect at the local level. This service partnership agreement will help eye care agencies and hospitals tie-up with local Rotary clubs to deliver positive, lasting eye care to local communities" noted Victoria Sheffield, CEO, International Eye Foundation and Vice-President, IAPB. “Eye care work will greatly benefit from the passion, energy, and support of Rotary members worldwide”.

IAPB’s mission is to eliminate the main causes of avoidable blindness and visual impairment by bringing together governments, non-governmental agencies, academic institutions, and the private sector to facilitate the planning, development, and implementation of sustainable eye care programs. 

Rotary members develop sustainable projects that fight disease, promote peace, provide clean water, support education, save mothers and children, and grow local economies. The recent partnership will help clubs further their efforts to provide disease prevention and treatment and maternal and child health programs worldwide. Over the past three years, nearly a quarter of a million people benefited from Rotary’s interventions for disease prevention and maternal and child health, supported by almost $100 million awarded through its grants programs.

IAPB joins a list of Rotary service partners including, the Peace Corps, Dollywood Foundation, the Global FoodBanking Network, and Youth Service America. 

About International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness 

The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) is the coordinating membership organization leading international efforts in blindness prevention activities. IAPB’s mission is to eliminate the main causes of avoidable blindness and visual impairment by bringing together governments and non-governmental agencies to facilitate the planning, development and implementation of sustainable national eye care programs. 

.

Kim Ludbrook, a Social Meeting, Christmas Lunch & a Lifeboat.

Last Week
Kim Ludbrook spoke about the effects of covering the war in Libya as a photojournalist and how he suffered from post traumatic stress disorder as a result.  He described not only the affect it had on him and his family but also the process of rehabilitation through counselling.  It's unusual for someone to do that but it emphasised how important it is to seek counselling after any traumatic experience that can happen to anyone, whether it's a car accident or even something in the home.  The difference, though, between Kim's problem and most counselling situation is that he fully intended continuing his career as a photojournalist where, even in this country, you are exposed to dangerous situations and photojournalists have been killed.  Most counselling is, hopefully, for a once only experience such as a hijacking or a car accident.
It was an extremely interesting and valuable talk and the number of questions arising from it just underlined the level of interest.

This Week
It's a Social Meeting.  As there is a tendency for people to sit at the same table every week maybe it would be a good idea to move to another table during the meeting....of course if we all did that we might end up changing tables but not our companions.
Where sociability is concerned we really do very well because it doesn't matter where you sit!

Congratulations everyone for this award - there were only 9 awarded in our District.

Christmas Lunch  Friday 8th December, 12,30 for 13,00 Parkview Golf Club.  R230pp
Book with Les Short lizles1@absamail.co.za and don't forget to invite partners and possible members.

It was excellent last year as you can see from these happy faces:

It was in treacherous seas in the English Channel back in 1987 that the lifeboat Rotary Service came into its own.

Based at the RNLI lifeboat station in Dover, the 50-foot steel-hulled craft came to the rescue of a 1,500-tonne cargo vessel being battered in a hurricane.

Acting Coxswain Roy Couzens was later awarded an RNLI silver medal and the Maud Smith Award for outstanding and bravery and seamanship after saving three men from the stricken vessel, while her six volunteer crew received RNLI bronze medals.

Today, Rotary Service rests at the boatyard in Lowestoft, where she was built, and is being carefully refurbished by a team of volunteers.

“Rotary Service is being well looked after,” explained Scott Snowling, chairman of the 50001 Youth Training Trust. “Her hull and superstructure have been stripped of many years of paint, and her new ex-RNLI livery of Oxford blue, rail red and aircraft grey has begun being applied.”

---

“By the end of her service life in 1997, the vessel had
been launched 411 times, saving 177 lives.”

---

The Rotary Club of Westminster West initiated the campaign in 1968 to raise £200,000 to fund a lifeboat, which was supported by Rotarians nationwide.

By 1974 and named Rotary Service, she was delivered to Falmouth where she was called out on service 45 times and saved 17 lives.

Rotary Service was then redeployed to the Dover lifeboat station and was officially named by Her Majesty, the Queen Mother, in 1978.

By the end of her service life in 1997, the vessel had been launched 411 times, saving 177 lives, before being sold out of service for use as a pilot boat in Cornwall and latterly as a pilot boat in Castletownbere in County Cork, Ireland.

Rotary Service is now enjoying a fresh lease of life in the Suffolk port thanks to the enthusiastic volunteers.

Formerly known as the Thames Class Lifeboat Trust, the 50001 Youth Training Trust works with young people aged between 12 and 25-years-old from vulnerable backgrounds across the UK.

Ultimately, the aim is to have her fully kitted out with new engines and re-designed interior to offer training voyages for youngsters.

Volunteers from the 50001 Youth Training Trust are working to restore Rotary Service

That goal is several years away since the work is being funded by charitable donations, sponsorship and grants.

Internally, Rotary Service is being stripped out. The volunteers have begun painting and sealing, removing old and redundant wiring, and preparing for new equipment to be installed.

“Unfortunately, at the moment, the engine room is still bare and we have no firm options for our engines at present.

“However, we’ve begun to go out to engine manufacturers seeking sponsorship for the repower,” explained Scott.

“We are still some time from completing the full project, however we are not giving up.

“We are extremely proud of the work that all individual Rotarians put in to raise the funds for Rotary Service’s purchase back in 1973 and very humbled that we have the support of Rotarians now.

“For us being able to take a vessel like Rotary Service with such an amazing life-saving past, and to use her for such a life-changing role in the future, is a wonderful opportunity to inspire our young trainees and demonstrate how our town’s heritage can have a huge impact on the future.”

Chris Hart, a Chinese Dinner? Perhaps. Kim Ludbrook & Rotary and the Italian Earthquakes.

Last Week



Economist Chris Hart spoke to us about the Whys and Wherefores of the South African economy, what is happening now and what is likely to happen when our new president is announced after the ruling party's congress in December.  What did surprise me was that he evaded answering questions by which I mean that he did talk but like a politician, didn't actually answer.
We had a number of first time visitors:

Mervin Hannay

Ann Matthews

Peter Kgomotso

Mots Kgametso

Dinner in Cyrildene @ Shun De Chinese Restaurant
So far I have not had one acceptance.  Friday will be the cut-off date.


This Week
Our Speaker is Kim Ludbrook.

Kim is the 48 year old Regional Chief photographer Africa for an international news photo agency, EPA Photos, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

  The 20 year career photojournalist covers major news, features and sports events, both in Africa and internationally for EPA Photos, a major international news photo agency.

  Kim has won the South Africa Press Photographer of the year award and other sections of the awards including sport, news and picture stories.

  On the news front, he has covered and organised the funeral of Nelson Mandela, the civil wars in Libya and Liberia as well as the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, the inauguration of Barack Obama, the Madagascar coup de tat, the Kenyan post political violence of 2008, the aftermath of the 2005 Asian Tsunami, well as major news events, both planned and spot news, in South Africa and the rest of Africa.

  On the sports front he covered 3 Tour de France races, 2012/2008 Euro soccer, 2010/2006 FIFA World Cup, the 2011 Rugby World Cup, the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics, 2003 cricket World Cup in South Africa, World Cup Swimming, MotoGP, President's Cup golf, International rugby, All Africa Games etc.

  Kim has also held various solo photo exhibitions

including 'Mandela 2.8’ ‘Tour de France’ ‘Bikers’.

  Apart from that, he has had photographs included 

in pre-eminent South African photography books, published calendars as well as being featured in various photography magazines.

  Kim is also a Canon South Africa Ambassador and has spoken during Canon Road shows and to various photographic and cycling groups on covering the Tour de France.

He also mentors younger photographers on their paths.

Italy's Disappearing Villages

Earthquakes and emigration are draining the life out of rural communities. Rotarians are giving young people a reason to come back.

 Arquata del Tronto was never an easy place to live. Picturesque, yes: The snowcapped peak of Monte Vettore forms the backdrop to this collection of medieval villages sandwiched between two national parks in central Italy’s Appenine Mountains. Tiny chapels line the local trails, and one village is known as the land of the fairies, a mythological place where shepherds were lured in by beautiful fairies with goat feet. But the municipality, which includes 15 villages, had a population of 1,200, and the nearest city is 15 miles away along the narrow, winding mountain roads. For a young person, for a young family, there was not much reason to stay. And that was before the earthquakes hit.  Maurizio Paci explains all of this after he escorts us through an army checkpoint to view this community where he and his family have lived for generations, which  was reduced to rubble after three major  earthquakes hit central Italy in 2016. He experienced the tragedy up close: Here in Arquata, he has been on the municipal council for 11 years, while in nearby Amatrice, which was also pummeled during the disasters, he is a police officer. “I was hit on all sides,” he says.

The municipality of Arquata del Tronto was still uninhabitable six months after the earthquakes because of continuing aftershocks. 

It’s a cool day in March, and the wind blows a shutter open and shut, revealing the plush headboard of a bed inside one of the still-standing buildings. We see a purple ironing board peeking out of an upended roof, a squashed red car, mattresses, bed frames, and bales of hay strewn about. 

But we also see signs of hope. With the help of Rotarians, some people see a future for these abandoned towns.

It was 3:30 a.m. on 24 August when the first earthquake struck. Paci awoke to the sound of a large mirror crashing to the floor, his parents yelling. He ran outside and saw his neighbors pouring out onto the street. He went to help in Pescara del Tronto, an area village that was so devastated that the mayor told the Italian newspaper il Giornale that it looked like Aleppo, Syria. 

“I saw people dead on the street who had escaped from their homes but were hit by debris. I pulled somebody alive from the rubble,” Paci says as we stand outside the ruins. “It was really dark. Everybody was yelling. You didn’t know where to go or who to help first.” 

Nearly 300 people died in the 6.2 magnitude quake, including 50 in this area. Two more earthquakes hit the region in late October. The three in rapid succession left thousands homeless.  

Earthquakes are not unfamiliar to Italians. Two plates of the earth’s crust, the African and Eurasian plates, are slowly colliding in northeastern Italy, a geologic shift that created the Alps. Meanwhile, the entire area where that collision is happening is drifting southeast. The result is that the ground underneath the Tyrrhenian Basin – the portion of the Mediterranean Sea surrounded by mainland Italy and Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica – is being stretched apart. It’s that stretching that is causing the tectonic activity in the Apennines. The last of the three earthquakes had a 6.6 magnitude, the strongest to hit Italy in 36 years. It created a huge crack in Monte Vettore and caused the land in a nearby village to drop 2 feet. Homes that had survived the initial earthquake were damaged. Arquata’s villages were declared uninhabitable because of the continuing aftershocks (including one early in the morning of our visit), and its residents, including Paci, now live in hotels or with family somewhere safer. A tunnel that had connected Arquata to other towns collapsed, and what had been a 15-minute trip became two hours. “The biggest problem is that people have left,” he says. “People are afraid to come back.” 

Rotarians Vincent Mazzone and Paolo Raschiatore talk with Aleandro Petrucci (right), Arquata’s mayor, about Rotary’s role in bringing young people back to the village.

In the weeks after the first earthquake, Rotarians began meeting with members of the affected communities to find out what they needed most. “The days following the earthquake were full of phone calls from everyone who wanted to go help, who wanted to collect materials and so on,” recalls Paolo Raschiatore, 2016-17 governor of Rotary District 2090, home to about 90 percent of the communities damaged by the earthquakes. But too many well-intended helpers jammed the mountain roads, making the work for emergency crews harder, he explains. “It’s not only not necessary; it’s a problem. I asked them to stay home.”

Less than two months before the first temblor, Italian Rotarians had already embarked on a landmark earthquake initiative that was years in the making. The 2014-15 district governor-nominees had decided to focus on earthquake safety as a group, prescient given what was to come. They signed a memorandum of understanding with the national Department of Civil Protection in July 2016 in which Rotarians agreed to create a task force for disaster aid in each district. The groups would organize activities to use Rotarians’ professional skills – technical, legal, medical, and industrial – to support civil protection activities in both ordinary and emergency situations. The project had to be put on hold as the government responded to the recent disasters.

After an earthquake in L’Aquila in 2009, Rotarians had stepped in and raised €2 million to rebuild a wing of the school of engineering at the University of L’Aquila. But following the 2016 earthquakes, the Italian government promised to reconstruct the buildings. So, instead of a construction project, members of District 2090 decided to draw on their expertise as businesspeople to help the communities rebound economically and give young people a reason to return. 

The district already had an active mentoring framework called the Virgilio Association, named for Virgil, the guide in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Rotarians had founded the organization several years prior to foster new economic activity in the district. They decided to use the Virgilio Association to develop programs for young entrepreneurs, including business mentoring, marketing, and facilitating access to bank credit. In June, the district signed agreements to build two business incubators, one in Arquata and one in Camerino, a city about 50 miles away with a university that will manage the programs to ensure sustainability. Rotarian professionals will handle the design and contracting for the construction of the facilities, which will cost an estimated €300,000 to €400,000 each. “If we want to maintain these places, it’s important to build new occupations for people, especially for young people,” Raschiatore says. They call the initiative Progetto Fenice – the Phoenix Project.  

As of the end of June, the district had raised €600,000 from Rotary members, clubs, and districts in Italy and abroad for the initiative, as well as a substantial portion from non-Rotarian donors. They launched about 20 mentoring relationships, with another 20 in the works. Rotarians are also working to create an e-commerce website to help businesspeople sell their products. “The youth are waiting on us. We absolutely can’t fail,” says Vincent Mazzone, president of the Rotary Club of Ascoli Piceno, the nearest club to Arquata. 

At the trailer serving as Arquata’s town hall, Paci introduces me to Aleandro Petrucci, the mayor of the munici-pality. Boxes are stacked along the floor in the office, and a space heater helps warm the cool mountain air. Petrucci says he has three main goals: jobs, housing – “and churches, of course,” he says with a laugh – and bringing back youth, something he’s glad to have Rotary’s help with. Just a few days earlier, Rotarians met to talk about the project. “Rotary will bring structure that would not be there without it,” he says. “That will bring jobs and young people.”

Giovanni Palaferri, who has begun raising cows on his family’s ancestral land, has joined with other young people to form a business group that is receiving assistance through the Italian Rotarians’ project.

Giovanni Palaferri is precisely the kind of enterprising young person the Rotarians are trying to keep in the area. Palaferri’s home was built with anti-seismic measures, so it is still standing. But since the area is deemed uninhabitable, he makes a 40-mile daily round trip to care for the animals on his farm in Spelonga. A calf born the previous night mews as we talk, the larger cows crunching on hay in a temporary barn.After spending time in his early 20s traveling Europe as a tour bus driver, Palaferri returned to the area and started raising cows a year ago on property his grandfather had farmed. He wants to expand his effort to making specialty cheeses and products with the chestnuts he harvests from his and his neighbors’ properties. With other young people in the area, he founded a business association to help increase production and sales, which is receiving assistance from the Rotarians’ project. “Rotary will let this business go further,” he says. “I could go national.”

And that, he hopes, will make Arquata a destination. “The ultimate goal would be that Arquata and all of the small villages in the area will compete with the famous centers around here,” he says. “If we can put Arquata on the map, it will attract more young people to come here.”

But life is so tough here, why would anyone want to come back? 

Palaferri left this rural area to seek a better life elsewhere, but what he discovered is that this is his home. “I love it, and for me it’s the best place in the world. It’s almost like paradise when this is what you see,” he says, gesturing to the mountain view outside the barn door. 

For Paci, whose girlfriend hopes to launch a beekeeping business to sell honey and related products through the Rotary project, it’s even simpler. This is where his family has always lived. “I have the option to leave; I have a job in Amatrice. I could forget about it here. But I’m tied here because of my ancestry. 

“Before the earthquake you had to have resolve to live here,” he says. “Now my resolve is even stronger. I feel motivated not just about building a home, but building a community.” 

And that’s something Rotarians know how to do. 

Arquata del Tronto was never an easy place to live. Picturesque, yes: The snowcapped peak of Monte Vettore forms the backdrop to this collection of medieval villages sandwiched between two national parks in central Italy’s Appenine Mountains. Tiny chapels line the local trails, and one village is known as the land of the fairies, a mythological place where shepherds were lured in by beautiful fairies with goat feet. But the municipality, which includes 15 villages, had a population of 1,200, and the nearest city is 15 miles away along the narrow, winding mountain roads. For a young person, for a young family, there was not much reason to stay. And that was before the earthquakes hit.  Maurizio Paci explains all of this after he escorts us through an army checkpoint to view this community where he and his family have lived for generations, which  was reduced to rubble after three major  earthquakes hit central Italy in 2016. He experienced the tragedy up close: Here in Arquata, he has been on the municipal council for 11 years, while in nearby Amatrice, which was also pummeled during the disasters, he is a police officer. “I was hit on all sides,” he says.

It’s a cool day in March, and the wind blows a shutter open and shut, revealing the plush headboard of a bed inside one of the still-standing buildings. We see a purple ironing board peeking out of an upended roof, a squashed red car, mattresses, bed frames, and bales of hay strewn about. 

But we also see signs of hope. With the help of Rotarians, some people see a future for these abandoned towns.

It was 3:30 a.m. on 24 August when the first earthquake struck. Paci awoke to the sound of a large mirror crashing to the floor, his parents yelling. He ran outside and saw his neighbors pouring out onto the street. He went to help in Pescara del Tronto, an area village that was so devastated that the mayor told the Italian newspaper il Giornale that it looked like Aleppo, Syria. 

“I saw people dead on the street who had escaped from their homes but were hit by debris. I pulled somebody alive from the rubble,” Paci says as we stand outside the ruins. “It was really dark. Everybody was yelling. You didn’t know where to go or who to help first.” 

Nearly 300 people died in the 6.2 magnitude quake, including 50 in this area. Two more earthquakes hit the region in late October. The three in rapid succession left thousands homeless.  

Earthquakes are not unfamiliar to Italians. Two plates of the earth’s crust, the African and Eurasian plates, are slowly colliding in northeastern Italy, a geologic shift that created the Alps. Meanwhile, the entire area where that collision is happening is drifting southeast. The result is that the ground underneath the Tyrrhenian Basin – the portion of the Mediterranean Sea surrounded by mainland Italy and Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica – is being stretched apart. It’s that stretching that is causing the tectonic activity in the Apennines. The last of the three earthquakes had a 6.6 magnitude, the strongest to hit Italy in 36 years. It created a huge crack in Monte Vettore and caused the land in a nearby village to drop 2 feet. Homes that had survived the initial earthquake were damaged. Arquata’s villages were declared uninhabitable because of the continuing aftershocks (including one early in the morning of our visit), and its residents, including Paci, now live in hotels or with family somewhere safer. A tunnel that had connected Arquata to other towns collapsed, and what had been a 15-minute trip became two hours. “The biggest problem is that people have left,” he says. “People are afraid to come back.” 

In the weeks after the first earthquake, Rotarians began meeting with members of the affected communities to find out what they needed most. “The days following the earthquake were full of phone calls from everyone who wanted to go help, who wanted to collect materials and so on,” recalls Paolo Raschiatore, 2016-17 governor of Rotary District 2090, home to about 90 percent of the communities damaged by the earthquakes. But too many well-intended helpers jammed the mountain roads, making the work for emergency crews harder, he explains. “It’s not only not necessary; it’s a problem. I asked them to stay home.”

Less than two months before the first temblor, Italian Rotarians had already embarked on a landmark earthquake initiative that was years in the making. The 2014-15 district governor-nominees had decided to focus on earthquake safety as a group, prescient given what was to come. They signed a memorandum of understanding with the national Department of Civil Protection in July 2016 in which Rotarians agreed to create a task force for disaster aid in each district. The groups would organize activities to use Rotarians’ professional skills – technical, legal, medical, and industrial – to support civil protection activities in both ordinary and emergency situations. The project had to be put on hold as the government responded to the recent disasters.

After an earthquake in L’Aquila in 2009, Rotarians had stepped in and raised €2 million to rebuild a wing of the school of engineering at the University of L’Aquila. But following the 2016 earthquakes, the Italian government promised to reconstruct the buildings. So, instead of a construction project, members of District 2090 decided to draw on their expertise as businesspeople to help the communities rebound economically and give young people a reason to return. 

The district already had an active mentoring framework called the Virgilio Association, named for Virgil, the guide in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Rotarians had founded the organization several years prior to foster new economic activity in the district. They decided to use the Virgilio Association to develop programs for young entrepreneurs, including business mentoring, marketing, and facilitating access to bank credit. In June, the district signed agreements to build two business incubators, one in Arquata and one in Camerino, a city about 50 miles away with a university that will manage the programs to ensure sustainability. Rotarian professionals will handle the design and contracting for the construction of the facilities, which will cost an estimated €300,000 to €400,000 each. “If we want to maintain these places, it’s important to build new occupations for people, especially for young people,” Raschiatore says. They call the initiative Progetto Fenice – the Phoenix Project.  

As of the end of June, the district had raised €600,000 from Rotary members, clubs, and districts in Italy and abroad for the initiative, as well as a substantial portion from non-Rotarian donors. They launched about 20 mentoring relationships, with another 20 in the works. Rotarians are also working to create an e-commerce website to help businesspeople sell their products. “The youth are waiting on us. We absolutely can’t fail,” says Vincent Mazzone, president of the Rotary Club of Ascoli Piceno, the nearest club to Arquata. 

At the trailer serving as Arquata’s town hall, Paci introduces me to Aleandro Petrucci, the mayor of the munici-pality. Boxes are stacked along the floor in the office, and a space heater helps warm the cool mountain air. Petrucci says he has three main goals: jobs, housing – “and churches, of course,” he says with a laugh – and bringing back youth, something he’s glad to have Rotary’s help with. Just a few days earlier, Rotarians met to talk about the project. “Rotary will bring structure that would not be there without it,” he says. “That will bring jobs and young people.”

Giovanni Palaferri is precisely the kind of enterprising young person the Rotarians are trying to keep in the area. Palaferri’s home was built with anti-seismic measures, so it is still standing. But since the area is deemed uninhabitable, he makes a 40-mile daily round trip to care for the animals on his farm in Spelonga. A calf born the previous night mews as we talk, the larger cows crunching on hay in a temporary barn.After spending time in his early 20s traveling Europe as a tour bus driver, Palaferri returned to the area and started raising cows a year ago on property his grandfather had farmed. He wants to expand his effort to making specialty cheeses and products with the chestnuts he harvests from his and his neighbors’ properties. With other young people in the area, he founded a business association to help increase production and sales, which is receiving assistance from the Rotarians’ project. “Rotary will let this business go further,” he says. “I could go national.”

And that, he hopes, will make Arquata a destination. “The ultimate goal would be that Arquata and all of the small villages in the area will compete with the famous centers around here,” he says. “If we can put Arquata on the map, it will attract more young people to come here.”

But life is so tough here, why would anyone want to come back? 

Palaferri left this rural area to seek a better life elsewhere, but what he discovered is that this is his home. “I love it, and for me it’s the best place in the world. It’s almost like paradise when this is what you see,” he says, gesturing to the mountain view outside the barn door. 

For Paci, whose girlfriend hopes to launch a beekeeping business to sell honey and related products through the Rotary project, it’s even simpler. This is where his family has always lived. “I have the option to leave; I have a job in Amatrice. I could forget about it here. But I’m tied here because of my ancestry. 

“Before the earthquake you had to have resolve to live here,” he says. “Now my resolve is even stronger. I feel motivated not just about building a home, but building a community.” 

And that’s something Rotarians know how to do.