District 9710

The Rotary Club of Woden

The Rotary Western Desert Project

Canberra-Woden work visit in November 2008

A six-member team visited Kintore for a week in November 2008. The team included President Shukry Sahhar with wife Helen, Club Development Director John Widdup with wife Julia plus Foundation Director Neale Emanuel and Lucinda Lang. The aim of the visit was to clean up and repaint an existing building that will serve as a health clinic and dialysis unit for the community of Kintore.

The building had fallen into disrepair so the aim of the visit was to clean it out, remove old fittings, demolish some internal walls, and repaint the inside and the outside walls. The state of the building before work started and as it proceeded is shown below:

Some local men from the Kintore Community assisted with the work and clearly enjoyed the experience (as did some local children).

The house has now been painted purple, in keeping with the first "Purple House", a health clinic and dialysis unit in Alice Springs that is run by the Western Desert community.

The team enjoyed the opportunity to get started on the physical work of the project after the lengthy but necessary planning and approval process. The next phase of the work will involve plumbing and electrical work in preparation for installation of furniture and equipment.