The Business Meeting, David Heritage & 'Revive', Rotarians & Peace, and the Rotary Foundation

Last Week

It was a Business Meeting and it was interesting to hear how much progress we had in the first six months.  The two learners we are sponsoring at McAuley House School had passed Grade 11 well and are now in Matric.  We have also continued to sponsor a candidate at the SA Guide Dogs for the Blind College of Orientation & Mobility.  This is a very important project as it is effectively training the trainer in the use of white canes and  other aspects of orientation in the rural areas.  What is surprising is that only Limpopo Province actively supports this training....not the richer Provinces.

The new collection system that has been introduced at Spar Norwood thanks to the suggestion of the former Orange Grove members has been an effortless great success.  Instead of collecting food products we are given a voucher for the value of the food that is donated by the public

.  This gives the various charities we collect for a monetary amount that they can use to buy what they require.  This has been very interesting as one particular charity bought toiletries in preference to food which just shows that our basic assumption of needs was totally wrong in the past.

The only disappointing aspect of the collection was the lack of support by the club.  Even though we didn't enjoy doing the turn out  for Makro was adequate.  This takes less time and we don't have to rush up to people and ask for their support, they automatically give so next time please support our Community Service Committee as the results were so good and Spar is more than helpful.

This Week

Our speaker is David Heritage.  I don't know much about him or his organisation, only what David Bradshaw has to say.

"He runs Revive a registered NPO company.They exist to serve and assist parolees and ex-offenders to reintegrate back into their families and communities as part of their journey of rehabilitation and restitution. David himself served I think 12-15 years in prison and has now dedicated his life to serving ex Prisoners."

The Board has approved a Vocational Service Award for him.

Picture Puzzle
Quite a few people tried to guess what last week's photo was, including the District Governor.  Everyone got it wrong!  Arancini was the correct answer but I would have accepted suppli because they look the same.  It's an Italian deep fried rice ball with ragu of meat and tomato inside....suppli has mozzarella instead.  Suppli is a Roman snack whereas arancini are from Sicily.  It's a handy way of using up risotto rice. 

This week it's guess the fish.

On 23 February, Rotarians will celebrate World Peace and Understanding Day – the 113th anniversary of Rotary’s founding.

Peace has been at the core of our organization from its earliest days. We established the Fourth Object of Rotary in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1921. We were in London when the seeds were sown for what became UNESCO after World War II. In Havana in 1940, we adopted a resolution calling for "freedom, justice, truth, sanctity of the pledged word, and respect for human rights," which became the framework for the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

We were active in the formation of the United Nations. In 1945, almost 50 Rotarians served as delegates, consultants, and advisers at the San Francisco Conference when the UN charter was written. Today, almost 73 years later, Rotary maintains the highest consultative status with the United Nations of any nongovernmental organization. A number of our Rotary Peace Fellows work in UN agencies. Rotary’s representatives to the UN also host a Rotary Day every November to celebrate our partnership for peace.

Today we also have a new partnership with the Institute for Economics and Peace, which was founded in Australia by tech entrepreneur Steve Killelea. The institute emphasizes what is called positive peace, based on eight "pillars": a well-functioning government, a sound business environment, equitable distribution of resources, acceptance of the rights of others, good relations with neighbors, free flow of information, high levels of human capital, and low levels of corruption.

Between now and June, we have the opportunity to participate in Rotary President Ian H.S. Riseley’s Presidential Peacebuilding Conferences in six cities across the world. Take a look online at rotary.org/presidential-conferences. We will continue to explore how the eight pillars of peace align with our areas of focus.

We also are joining with the University of Chicago to host Pathways to Peace, a series of talks featuring leading scholars, practitioners, Rotary Peace Fellows, and thinkers in the field of peace and conflict prevention and resolution. Watch the first one, which was held in September, at bit.ly/2j9cSUh.

Together with our partners, we will work to establish ourselves as global thinkers and leaders to advance understanding, goodwill, and international peace.

Let us work together on this journey.

Foundation receives highest rating from Charity Navigator

For the 10th consecutive year, The Rotary Foundation has received the highest rating — four stars — from Charity Navigator, an independent evaluator of charities in the U.S.

In the most recent ratings, the Foundation earned the maximum of 100 points for demonstrating both strong financial health and commitment to accountability and transparency.

In a letter to the Foundation, Charity Navigator notes that "only 1 percent of the charities we evaluate have received at least 10 consecutive 4-star evaluations, indicating that The Rotary Foundation outperforms other charities in America. This exceptional designation from Charity Navigator sets The Rotary Foundation apart from its peers and demonstrates to the public its trustworthiness."

The rating reflects Charity Navigator's assessment of how the Foundation uses donations, sustains its programs and services, and practices good governance and openness.

What did you say? a Business Meeting & a Bit of Axe Throwing.

Last Week

Varsha Sewpersad spoke to us on 'Hearing Health' and everything that can affect your hearing.  In the case of many people 'Age Related Hearing Loss' is an issue that they prefer to ignore but she warned that hearing loss and the resulting lack of brain activity is often a contributory factor for the onset of dementia.  If you don't use it, it atrophies! 
She said that everyone over 65 should have their hearing tested once a year.  Interesting as we don't think twice about regular visits to the optician but would never think about our hearing.

This Week
It's a business meeting.  We are more than half way through the year and this is President Lyn's gallop to the finishing line so we must make sure she ends her year in style.

Vocational and Lester Connock Awards 16th February
We hope to be able to organise a lunch at the Wanderers Golf Club like last year.  The idea is also to include the LC Awards if the recipients are available.

Visit of Doreen Muheru  Friday 9th March
This lunch we will also try and organise at the Wanderers Golf Club.

Well, Here's an Idea for a Fund Raising Event!

Aprille Weron, right, and her friend Brooke Williams raised funds with an axe-throwing tournament.

Aprille Weron grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia; it was, she recalls, “a very privileged life.” That’s why, when she heard about Philadelphia’s New Day Center – a Salvation Army-sponsored drop-in center that helps women and girls being trafficked for sex – she was shocked to learn that many of the people who come to the center are from that same area.

We think that trafficking is something that’s far away,” says Weron, a member of the Rotary Club of King of Prussia, Pa. “But some of these girls went to the same schools that you and your friends went to.”

Weron and her friend Brooke Williams, a member of the Rotary Club of Philadelphia Happy Hour, decided to help raise funds for the center through an unusual activity: axe throwing. Held on 14 October, the Salvation Army’s Axe of Kindness 2017 Axe Throwing Tournament saw more than 40 community members – including Weron and Williams, who competed as The Rotaraxers – hurling 1.5-pound hatchets at a target.

“We threw a lot of axes that day,” Weron says. As with darts, the goal in axe throwing is to get as close as possible to the bull’s-eye. But the real goal, of course, was to raise funds for the New Day Center – which the event did, to the tune of $6,800.

Not only that, but the “Did you say axe throwing?” factor got others interested in the cause, Williams says: “Doing events like this is a fun way to raise money, but it also is a great way to advertise what we’re doing. It’s a little more attention-getting.”

The proof? When the Philadelphia Happy Hour club heard about the event, members decided to organize a second axe-throwing fundraiser for the New Day Center in December, with the aid of the Rotary clubs of Conshohocken-Plymouth-Whitemarsh and Philadelphia.

Thank You, Mark, Varsha Sewpersad and RI President Elect Barry Rassin and the next Rotary Year.

Last Week
Isn't it annoying when a speaker cancels at the last minute especially when it has been organised well in advance.  Maybe it's a bit like some people who accept invitations when in fact they really mean "Yes, we would love to come unless something better turns up".

No Dalene Naude so Mark Franklin stepped into the breach and gave us a very interesting talk about a book he was reading entitled Affluence without Abundance - the Disappearing World of the Bushmen by Dr James Suzman.  It was a fascinating talk

Suzman was the first social anthropologist to work in Namibia's eastern Omaheke among "Southern Ju/'hoansi" where he exposed the brutal marginalisation of San that had lost their lands to white cattle ranchers and pastoralist Herero.

In 1998 Suzman was appointed to lead the landmark study, The Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern Africa. Based on an ACP/EU resolution.

Suzman later led an assessment by the Minority Rights Group International to assess how Namibia's ethnic minorities had fared in the first ten years of Namibian Independence. The subsequent report was published in 2002. Emerging during period of political upheaval in Namibia, it led to calls for the better protection of ethnic minorities in Namibia.  The Namibian Government rejected the report's findings and the President, Sam Nujoma, accused Suzman of amplifying "ethnic tensions".

In 2001, Suzman was awarded the Smuts Commonwealth Fellowship in African Studies at Cambridge University.

Suzman later established a program to establish opportunities for Hai//om San to benefit from tourism revenues in Etosha National Park.  Suzman was also involved in the dispute that arose as a result of the illegal relocation of Gwi and Gana San from Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Suzman was highly critical of the Botswana Government's actions and, later, Survival International's campaign which he claimed undermined ongoing negotiations between the Botswana Government and a coalition of organisations supporting the evicted San.  Survival International, in turn, criticised Suzman and members of the negotiating team lead by Ditshwanelo, The Botswana Centre for Human Rights of complicity with the Botswana Government.

In 2007, Suzman joined De Beers where as Global Head of Public Affairs he developed De Beers award-winning sustainability functions.  He resigned in 2013.

In 2013 Suzman and Jimmy Wales teamed up with Lily Cole to launch Impossible.com at the Cambridge Union.  In the same year he was invited to deliver the 2nd Protimos Lecture at the Parliament Chamber of London's Inner Temple.

This Week

Our speaker is Varsha Sewpersad.  Varsha Sewpersad is the senior audiologist and practice owner at Speak Today, Hear Forever Practice (STHF), who prides herself in implementing research proven practices within all services offered by STHF. 

Having worked within hospitals, specialised preschools, remedial schools, medico-legal teams and private practices in South Africa  and Dubai, Varsha has gained extensive and valuable experience within the fields of speech therapy and audiology.

With a great passion and desire to improve the quality of lives of individuals with speech, language and/or hearing difficulties, Varsha qualified with her Honours Degree in the Bachelor of Communication Pathology at the University of Pretoria and further went on to obtain her Master's Degree in Audiology at the University of Witwaterstrand. Varsha is a published author and enjoys conducting research to increase her knowledge in the field.

Careers Morning Saturday 10th March

I have sent out reminder emails to all those who participated last year and already confirmations are coming in.  I also sent a notice to all club members.  Mark Potterton and I will be meeting this week to finalise participating schools and tertiary institutions.  Watch this space.

Thanks to The Ramble we are ahead of any local publications when it comes to the latest news from Rotary International.  Our incoming DG Charles Deiner is there in San Diego.  See below:

2018-19 RI President Barry Rassin wants Rotary members to Be the Inspiration

Rotary International President-elect Barry Rassin laid out his vision for the future of the organization on Sunday, calling on leaders to work for a sustainable future and to inspire Rotarians and the community at large.

Rassin, a member of the Rotary Club of East Nassau, New Providence, Bahamas, unveiled the 2018-19 presidential theme, Be the Inspiration, to incoming district governors at Rotary’s International Assembly in San Diego, California, USA. “I want you to inspire in your clubs, your Rotarians, that desire for something greater. The drive to do more, to be more, to create something that will live beyond each of us.”

Rassin stressed the power of Rotary’s new vision statement, “Together, we see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change — across the globe, in our communities, and in ourselves.” This describes the Rotary that leaders must help build, he said.

To achieve this vision, the president-elect said, Rotarians must take care of the organization: “We are a membership organization first. And if we want to be able to serve, if we want to succeed in our goals — we have to take care of our members first.”

Rassin asked the incoming district governors to “inspire the club presidents, and the Rotarians in your districts, to want to change. To want to do more. To want to reach their own potential. It’s your job to motivate them — and help them find their own way forward.”

Progress on polio

Rassin noted that one source of inspiration has been Rotary’s work to eradicate polio. He described the incredible progress made over the past three decades. In 1988, an estimated 350,000 people were paralyzed by the wild poliovirus; just 20 cases were reported in 2017 as of 27 December. “We are at an incredibly exciting time for polio eradication,” he said, “a point at which each new case of polio could very well be the last.”

He emphasized that even when that last case of polio is recorded, the work won’t be finished. “Polio won’t be over, until the certifying commission says it’s over—when not one poliovirus has been found, in a river, in a sewer, or in a paralyzed child, for at least three years,” he said. “Until then, we have to keep doing everything we’re doing now.” He urged continued dedication to immunization and disease surveillance programs.

Sustaining the environment

Rotary has focused heavily on sustainability in its humanitarian work in recent years. Now, Rassin said, Rotarians must acknowledge some hard realities about pollution, environmental degradation, and climate change. He noted that 80 percent of his own country is within one meter of sea level. With sea levels projected to rise two meters by 2100, he said, “my country is going to be gone in 50 years, along with most of the islands in the Caribbean and coastal cities and low-lying areas all over the world.”

Rassin urged leaders to look at all of Rotary’s service as part of a larger global system. He said that this means the incoming district governors must be an inspiration not only to clubs, but also to their communities. “We want the good we do to last. We want to make the world a better place. Not just here, not just for us, but everywhere, for everyone, for generations.”

Happy New Year, Social Meetings, Hope Project and Sea Mercy

Welcome  back  to our Official Meetings

We did have unofficial meetings on the Fridays in the Wanderers Club but they were just for those who wanted to go or who could go.  Here's the turn out for for Friday 5th January.

This Week
Our speaker is Dalene Naude, Director of the Hope Project.

The Hope Project is a registered NPC (2016/137082/08) that assists minority families who have fallen on hard times and/or who live in squatter camps/informal settlements. There are currently over 500 minority camps in S.A. We focus mainly on helping each family to empower themselves through skills development where possible and assist in finding work for the unemployed.   Our purpose is to uplift, assist with job procurement, help supplement meals, clothe the kids and ensure they go to school.

We provide the tools they need to plant vegetable gardens and improve living conditions, and to build self sustainable communities. We basically assist them to start over again. We aim to give hope to the hopeless, dignity to the elderly, and a purpose to adults that have lost everything, including their self worth and dignity.   In a country where minorities form 8% of the population, it’s astounding that more than 1 million are living in crippling poverty as a result of governments Employment Equity Act, which effectively excludes them from obtaining employment, and the ability to provide for their families. They are often exploited for personal gain by the landowners who allow them to squat on their land, at a price.

Yachts bring aid to remote South Pacific islands

Richard and Stephanie Hackett began chartering sailboats and yachts to travel the South Pacific more than 20 years ago. Seeing the problems of getting health care to remote islands, Richard Hackett, past president of the Rotary Club of Fern Ridge (Veneta), Ore., came up with the idea of charter sailboats helping to provide health care and disaster relief. Sea Mercy, the nonprofit he and his wife founded, started with one volunteer vessel in 2013 and now has more than 100 yachts on call, with initiatives to address health care, disaster response, education and training, and economic development.

Q: How do you get the vessels and the volunteers for Sea Mercy’s programs?

A: The people with the vessels are either private owners or the captains who represent private owners. Most are people who have chased the dream of sailing the South Pacific or sailing around the world. For the medical personnel, it’s a working vacation: Doctors, nurses, physician assistants, pharmacists, dentists, and optometrists come out and join us. Even some medical students want to participate. It’s a two-week period. We travel to anywhere from five to nine remote islands. We set up a clinic onshore, and they treat patients throughout the day or over a two-day period. When we’re all done, we start sailing to the next remote island.

The clinic on Batiki was overflowing with kids waiting to see our medical team! Thank you Sea Mercy medical volunteers for serving the remote islands! 

Q: How did disaster relief fit into the original model?

A: We thought once every five years we would be responding to, perhaps, a cyclone. Cyclone Ian hit Tonga in 2014, and we sent two vessels. We were the only vessels that could reach these remote islands; big merchant ships can’t get in, because of the narrow entrances and shallow lagoons. Then Cyclone Pam hit Vanuatu in 2015, so we sent eight vessels to Vanuatu. We realized we had to get in front of this and created our first response league. We contacted owners of small yachts and the superyachts, and built a network just in case something else happens. When Cyclone Winston hit Fiji in 2016, we had 60 vessels that responded. We were the first on the scene and the last ones to leave.

Q: How did this expand into economic development?

A: It started with diabetes. The rate of diabetes in the South Pacific is one of the highest in the world. A lot of the health issues are either directly or indirectly a result of diabetes. The [Western] diet that we have introduced to them has changed their whole culture. On the remote islands they don’t have access to the drugs to treat it. And the farmers are moving away, and they’re sending money home. Instead of working and farming and fishing, people are buying sugar and processed flour and rice and noodles. In our health clinics, we realized, we’re treating the symptoms but not the underlying causes. So we are shifting to more of an economic development, agriculturally based program. We’re budgeting it, gearing up, meeting with the leadership, and getting the approval. It’s been a really amazing journey, but we’re very excited about seeing the impact it’s going to have on these remote islands. 

Sea Mercy has more than 100 yachts on call, ready to deliver health care and aid. 

Christmas Lunch, the Spar Collections, the Four Way Test, Social Meetings & Literacy

Last Week

36 Rotarians, friends and partners sat down for lunch at Parkview Golf Club last Friday.  Not only was the food excellent but there was lots of it.  Many thanks to Pam Donaldson for the crackers and to the Golf Club for the Christmas centre pieces.  It was a truly festive occasion.
 I forgot about photographs so I'm afraid you will only appear on this page if you are a Bittereinde!




The Spar Collections

Dear All ,

Thank you for giving of your time for raising funds for the Xmas Hamper collection. The results are as follows:

October – R 7762.00

November – R 8320.00

December – R 10 379.00

Grand Total – R 26 461

It is proposed that that the club contributes to this figure to make it a round figure of R 50 000

We plan to distribute this as follows:

Phuditchaba – 50 % - R25,000

Vroue Federasie – 30 % - R30% - R 15 000

Candle Light Club – 20 % - R 10 000

Regards,

Roger

 Congratulations to Roger Lloyd and his team.  It was a very worthwhile exercise and maybe we should consider doing it on a monthly basis.

This Week
Lyn asked me to run a workshop on the Four Way Test.  I will expand it a little beyond that and it will be very interesting to hear people's opinions.

Social Meetings

The next few meetings will be social gatherings for those who wish to have lunch in Chariots.  Our first formal meeting will be on Friday 12th January.  In the meantime, have a wonderful Christmas and all the best for 2018!

The District Governor is keen on our District being involved in Literacy.  I dont know how many of you saw the statistics that showed us bottom ....50th...of countries that were tested fot literacy with Limpopo being the worst province, 90% of Grade 4's being unable to read with understanding.

This is what can be done.

Write to Read team members (from left) Bill Humphries, Liz Wilson, Barbara Aven, Margaret Fletcher, and Bob Blacker. 

One book can open up a world of imagination – and so can asking a question. Bob Blacker of the Rotary Club of Steveston-Richmond, British Columbia, Canada, recalls a pivotal conversation with Judge Steven L. Point, former lieutenant governor of British Columbia and a member of the Skowkale Nation, about Rotary’s projects donating books overseas.

“He asked me about what Rotary was doing for books in our own backyard, and I couldn’t answer him,” recalls Blacker, a former police officer and Point’s aide-de-camp at the time. “We weren’t doing anything. He said, ‘I want to get books out to isolated First Nation communities in British Columbia.’”

Shirley-Pat Chamberlain, of the Rotary Club of Williams Lake Daybreak, British Columbia, also knew there was a need to bring books to rural and remote indigenous communities. In the village of Toosey (Tl’esqox), where many members of the Toosey First Nation live, the nearest library was a 45-minute drive away. During a May 2010 visit to the village school, Chamberlain asked education coordinator Shirley Diablo to see the community’s literacy resources, already knowing what the answer would be.

“She pointed to the bookshelf in the band office and said, ‘That’s it,’” Chamberlain says. “On the bookshelf was a 1962 Encyclopaedia Britannica set with four volumes missing.”

A subsequent discussion led Point, Blacker, and Chamberlain to the idea “of maybe bringing more than a bag of books but using Rotary to sponsor ‘a little bookshelf’ for each community in their area,” says Chamberlain.

The Write to Read Project has installed more than a few bookshelves: It has resulted in 14 libraries in rural and remote indigenous communities in British Columbia, with plans for four more by the end of 2017.

The project has brought 3,000 to 4,000 books to each library. The libraries are in small villages in remote areas accessible only by poor roads, boat, or plane.

“We had a lot of things that we had to overcome,” says Blacker, past governor of District 5040. “No. 1, where were we going to get the books? Two, how we’re going to put them in the library, and, three, what about a building? We need a building.”

It turned out that getting enough books really wasn’t a problem.

The first library, installed in Toosey in 2011, received books donated locally and by Rotarians around the district. Chamberlain, who was a community adult literacy program coordinator, also stocked the library with indigenous-specific books and those for adult literacy. 

Word got around, and now books are coming from around the world. The Rotary Club of Commerce City, Colorado, USA, sends members George and Sharon Maybee every other year with a horse trailer full of books, Chamberlain says. 

“We actually had to turn them down – we asked them to wait until next year,” she says. “We’ve run out of space.”

Blacker recruited a team of volunteer librarians to catalog and install the books, which are stored and sorted in donated storage units (the project now has five filled with books waiting for new libraries). Britco, which supplied modular buildings to the 2010 Olympics, donated a dozen 10-by-40-foot units to the initiative, and architects and builders have donated time and materials to constructing new facilities.

In all, more than 30 corporate sponsors have contributed to the successful project, Blacker says. And Point’s successor as lieutenant governor (his term ended in 2012) has supported the initiative as well. Lt. Gov. Judith Guichon has officiated at the opening of all of the Write to Read libraries established since 2012.

New libraries are also creating learning centers stocked with iPad Minis and refurbished computers. The design of these centers is driven by the community residents themselves, who sit down with architect Scott Kemp to come up with a plan that fits their needs. In one community, young people requested a recording studio, Chamberlain says.

“They said, ‘We would like to be able to sit with our elders one on one and have them talk to us in our language, teach us our stories, and record their songs,’” Chamberlain says.

Communities are also working to improve internet connectivity, because “there is a huge yearning in the communities to do online learning,” Blacker says. “They’ve got many adults who would like to educate themselves – many didn’t go further than grade five or six, and they want to improve their life.”

In addition to providing reading material and a path-way to education, the library construction is opening up apprenticeships for local youth with carpenters and other professionals.

“It’s not only creating healthy spaces in the community, but also increasing employment in these communities,” Chamberlain says.

The project has had other positive side effects as well. Because the books are cataloged by librarians, children learn where to find their favorite books – so when they go to a larger library, they know where to look, she says.

Chamberlain, who is an adopted member of the Toosey community, says the project has led to other successes bringing in grants for community development and renovation projects.

“There’s a level of confidence in that community that really wasn’t there before,” she says. “It’s really a ‘why not us’ attitude instead of ‘why us.’”

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.