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Guest Speaker:
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Emily Morgan, Fulbright
Scholar, Deakin
University
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Topic:
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Global
Food Production
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Speakers Aide:
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Lin Martin
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Desk Duties:
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Michelle Hart, Ken Rice, Lesley Bell
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Roving Reporter:
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Geoff Limmer
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President Greg’s
Report: The Week (Nov 12th) in Review
It
seems the new seating arrangements have met with universal support. Well done
Lesley for this suggestion. It just goes to show how small improvements are
constantly there just waiting for someone to put their mind to it.
The
Board recently approved allocating a percentage of our takings from the
Farmers Market to a Cluster Group project (the 5 other Clubs we share the
market with). Given the pressure that Eastern Emergency Relief is under, the
Cluster Presidents Group decided this week to provide a major cash
contribution to EER in time for Christmas. The details will be arranged with
the Farmers Market Committee.
Please
make your thoughts known to Lindsay
on the Club name by responding to his email promptly. This is an important
matter and the Board wants to properly reflect the will of the members.
Please
make the effort to attend this week if at all possible for the induction of
Kath Ronan as our newest member and also give thought to who else we can
welcome into our great Club.
President
Greg
Report from Last Week’s Meeting (Nov 12th) by Roving Reporter
Our guest
speaker was Elena Jenkin, daughter of Pili and Owen. Elena has worked for 16
years with people with disabilities, especially hearing impaired, both in Australia and
overseas.
Her
presentation focused on her work in developing countries, in particular Samoa
and Nepal,
where she worked respectively with Christian Blind Mission and Handicap
International (a French organization). In these and many other developing
countries, people with disabilities are shunned by the community, and
children especially are neglected and disadvantaged. The disability is often
regarded as their fault or as punishment for something wrong that they may
have done. So, as well as helping with the treatment and rehabilitation of
the disabled or impaired person, much of her work has been to enlighten the
communities through a range of family and community programs, including such
techniques as street dramas. Increasingly, surgery-based treatment is being
supplemented by follow-up programs or replaced by education, awareness and/or
employment programs, with people with disabilities themselves often being
trained to work with, and teach, others.
Elena
presented some disturbing statistics pertaining to the disproportionally high
mortality rate of children with a disability in the world, the level of
unemployment amongst people with disabilities and the proportion of the
world’s disabled each being around 80%, while conversely, only 2% of the
world’s disabled are receiving rehabilitation and assistance.
She
concluded her presentation with a story of an 8 year old deaf girl in Samoa who went from being totally outcast at school to
becoming a model student once she received the necessary help, with a key
factor being the change in attitude of her mother from one of shunning her to
becoming her teacher’s aid in school!
Our
thanks to Elena for her enlightening presentation, despite the technical
difficulties that prevented her Powerpoint from being shown until late in the
meeting..
Elena Jenkins explained how people with disabilities
are shunned by the community, and children especially are neglected.
Elena with husband Philip, Elena challenged us to think
much more about the huge issue of disabilities across our world and how much
still needs to be done.
Attendance Report for
Last Week’s Meeting (12th Nov) by Ken Rice:
Listed below are Apologies for and Make-ups advised for the
September 3rd meeting. Remember that to be counted towards attendance,
Make-ups may be made 14 days prior to, or following, a missed meeting date.
Notice of Apology prior to a meeting should be
made to Geoff Limmer, email rotary@airportbus.com.au or Tel:
0419 329 218.
Likewise if you are bringing a guest, similar notice would be
appreciated beforehand if at all possible.
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Apologies: (7)
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Maurice Benington, Ken Clark, Rob
Collier, Brian McPhail, Bernie Millane, Don Sweeney, Ralston Wood
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Leave of Absence:
(6)
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Murray Baird,
Trevor Dalziel, Peter Enlund,
Vici Funnell, Jim Killeen, John Maddock.
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Absence: (1)
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Tony De Fazio
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Present:
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20 / 34
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Visiting
Rotarians:
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(nil)
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Visitors:
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Elena
Jenkin Guest
Speaker
Pili Jenkin Guest
of Owen Jenkin
Philip
Waters Guest
of Owen Jenkin
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Make-ups
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RCBHC Board
10/11/08: Greg
Cooper, Geoff Limmer, Michelle Hart, Lesley Bell, Maurice Benington,
Ken Clark, Tony Stokes,
Lindsay Mackay
ROMAC
District 9810 Meeting 11/11/08: Geoff Limmer
Whitehorse Farmers Market
9/11/08: Michael
Kirk, Ken Rice, Ken Clark, Peter Enlund
Farmers
Market Cttee Meeting 7/11/08: Michael
Kirk, Malcolm Chiverton
Farmers
Market Whitehorse
Cl 11/11/08: Michael Kirk
OP
Cleft 10/11/08: Ken
Clark, Michael Kirk
Rotaract
Cluster 4&5 Meeting 11/11/08: Malcolm Chiverton
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Future Meetings: Important Notice:
Maurice Benington, Club Director for Vocational
Service has organised for a Club meeting to be held off-site at NADRASCA , 52-62 Rookes Rd
(Old Aust Post Bldg) Nunawading at 7.00 am, (for 7-15am breakfast) on
Wednesday December 10th 2008.
We will be the guests of NADRASCA and be provided
with breakfast and a tour of their impressive facilities. Plan now and invite a business colleague to
come and enjoy this special vocational event with you and the club.
The location is as follows:
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Date
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Speaker
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Subject
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Speakers Aide
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26
November
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Lucia
Strati, Outbound Cultural Ambassadorial Scholar
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Spanish
in Spain!
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Kerry Barrett
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3
December
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Prof
Boyd Swinburn, Deakin
University
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The
Obesity Epidemic – is there one?
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Brian
McPhail (tbc)
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10
December
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Visit
to NADRASCA
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Organised
by Maurice Benington
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Maurice
Benington
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Important Dates:
Future Meetings:
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Date
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Speaker
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Subject
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Speakers Aide
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Sun
30/11
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Club
Family Social day at Puffing Billy
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Puffing
Billy Station, Belgrave
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Sun 14/12
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Nunawading
Farmers Market
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7.30
to 12.30pm
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Behind
City of Whitehorse,
Nunawading Offices
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Mon 8/12
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Board
Meeting
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6.30pm
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253c
Burwood Hwy,
Burwood
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Sat 20/12
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Eastern
Emergency Relief Roster
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9.00am
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1/10 Thornton
Cres Mitcham
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Wed 24/12
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Club
Christmas Meeting
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7.15
am for 7.30 am start
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Box
Hill Golf Club
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Birthdays:
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2 November
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Robyn Stokes
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4 November
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Rosemary Dalziel
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7 November
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Greg Cooper
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13 November
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Jill Maddock
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13 November
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Don Sweeney
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15 November
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Brian Martin
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18 November
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Kerry Barrett
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20 November
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Malcolm Chiverton
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20 November
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Andrew Forgas
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28 November
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Barbara Mackay
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Anniversaries:
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23 November
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Greg and Penny Cooper
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Rotary
Inductions:
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3 November 1999
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Bruce McEwen
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Members Input Corner:
From
Brian Martin
The operation of
Operation Cleft
In
response to a number of queries from Club members, I would like to outline
the day-today functions of Operation Cleft in Bangladesh.
When
we formed the Operation Cleft Australia Foundation Trust Fund in May 2008
one of the first (and important decisions) was to establish an initial
working budget including limiting the annual number of operations to 1,000.
This was done because we didn’t know if we could match the level of income
of the previous year and the committee agreed that we should have a very conservative
approach to spending especially in our first year.
For
your information these 1,000 operations are completed as follows:
Monthly
operations
Our
team of eight surgeons undertake a minimum of 10 operations each month in a
number of centres throughout Bangladesh making a total of 80
operations per month (for ten months of the year). Our biggest problem with
this arrangement is that in some cases we may get up to 30 children
arriving for operations (in some cases travelling long distances) when the
surgeon is funded for only ten operations in that month.
The
management of this situation is one of the first tasks of our new
in-country Manager, Dalia Das when she commences in Feb 2009. (Appointing
an in-country Manager was an important part of our business plan as part of
our requirement to meet AusAid standards).
The
fact is that the demand will always outstrip the supply as there are an
estimated 300,000 children in Bangladesh with cleft lips and
cleft palates.
Dalia
is a young professional Bangladeshi national who is currently working for
BRAC a NGO in Africa and was chosen from
over 350 applicants. Dalia’s appointment is another important stage in the
development of Operation Cleft and she will progressively take over from
Naanki in 2009.
A
recent development to assist with the problem with “oversupply” was to
source local financial support to fund operations and we now have a Dhaka company, Far East Knitting Mills, who have
committed to funding a minimum of 100 operations in 2008-09. Sourcing local
financial and in-kind support will be another important role for Dalia in
the future.
Surgical
Camps
The
second part of our surgical program is to fund another 200 operations at
“surgical camps” where a team of surgeons come together for up to week and
operate on a group of children. Our biggest camp (approximately 100
children) is held in Jessore early each year with a number of smaller camps
running throughout the year.
Speech
Camps
The
third part of our work in our “holistic” approach to total cleft management
in Bangladesh
is to fund a number of “speech camps.
Bangladesh’s first ever
speech therapy outreach program or “speech camp” was held at Lamb Hospital, Dinajpur from October
18-23. This six day program, developed by Operation Cleft, involved the
training of local speech and language therapists in cleft palate speech
therapy and training of community health workers and parents in speech
therapy techniques.
Seventeen
children who had repaired cleft palates attended the program with their parent
or
guardian.
“It was incredible to watch the transformation in the parents over the
course of the
week”,
said Naanki. “They went from trying to force their child to speak, to using
the songs,
games
and modelling of correct speech productions that they had learned to
encourage their
child.
It was fantastic.”
Because
this is such a new profession in Bangladesh, the speech and
language therapy students also used (for the first time) a speech
assessment that was developed specifically for cleft speech in Bangla, the
local language. As the camp came to an end, community health workers and
parents were excited and optimistic that the new skills they had learnt
would promote better speech outcomes for the children.
Participants
were provided with a home program and their progress will be reviewed in
December at Lamb
Hospital during the
next Operation Cleft surgical camp.
Finally,
don’t forget to mention to your family and friends about this unique Rotary
program especially during the festive season
A
few Operation Cleft facts to remember:
- The
Operation Cleft model is simple, cost effective and sustainable. Local
surgeons performing cleft operations in local hospitals and the
training of local health professionals. Operation Cleft funds a
minimum of 1,000 operations and four speech camps annually.
- The average
cost of each operation is around $200.00. Where else in the world
could you change someone’s life so dramatically and permanently for
such a small amount?
- Our web site
is being constantly upgraded and donors can pay online by using our
secure “PayPal” system. We have already received thousands of dollars
in donations from international supporters using this method.
Brian Martin
Chairman,
Operation Cleft Australia
(Part
of this article was taken from the latest Operation Cleft newsletter
produced by our Administration Manager, Julie Stein. Everyone in the Club
will receive an electronic copy of this bi-annual newsletter very soon)
Colin together with Nursing Staff
Jessore
surgical team at work
Speech
camp examination
From
Lesley Bell:
As
you will recall, last February I spent two weeks living in Kabul
Afghanistan
with our daughter Rebekah, who has been working for the UN, and more
recently for the Afghan government, as a project manager. During my visit, I spent 8 days working as a
volunteer for the Women of Hope
Project, a small not-for-profit organization that is helping local
families through marketing the embroidery / sewing skills of the women to
international personnel serving in Kabul. I thought you may be interested to learn more about
this good news story through their latest newsletter. Should you feel you would like to
make a contribution to this small but growing organization, I can attest to
its validity and the magnificent difference it is making towards the
independence of the local Afghan women.
Here
is just one great story; email
Lesley for the full newsletter. Ed
Marzia an inspiration to her family and many other in Kabul
Embroidery Project - Marzia's Story
Marzia was only 16 years old when the Taliban took control
of Kabul.
Her family was very poor but her father had a job with the government
and was able to support their family. One night, bombs fell from the
sky and hit the home they lived in. Her two brothers, a sister and
her father were instantly killed. In a moment, her mother became a widow
during a time when women were not allowed to even leave the house without a
male relative to accompany them. Marzia, with her mother and little sister,
spent many cold and desperate nights with no food or wood to heat their
bombed out shelter that was once their home.
Marzia came to Women
of Hope Project a year ago, asking to join the
project. Her smile was enchanting but her desperation was obvious.
She brought a few small samples; her skill was phenomenal and we were happy
to receive her.
Marzia is now one of our top producers. She is able to provide support for
her mother and sister and has recently become engaged to be married. Once a
young girl, living a truly hopeless existence, through her work with WOHP,
Marzia is able to provide a good life for her mother and her sister and now
has a hope for a bright and happy future.
.
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Desk Duties/Greeting
Roster 2008:
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November
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Michelle
Hart, Ken Rice, Lesley Bell
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December
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Geoff
Limmer, Alison Gregory,
Andrew Forgas
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19 November
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Geoff Limmer
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26 November
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Alison Gregory
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3 December
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Ian Port
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10 December
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Ken Clark
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Whitehorse Farmers Market Roster:
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14 December
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Shift 1 (7.30-10.00am)
Shift 2 (10.00am-2.00pm)
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Lesley Bell, Murray Baird
Michelle Hart, Alison Gregory
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Eastern Emergency Relief
Roster:
In the event that
you are unable to make the allocated date, please let Geoff
Limmer know.
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20 December:
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Peter
Enlund, Craig Hoath, Tony Stokes, Bruce McEwen,
(Rotaractor)
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16
February:
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Don Sweeney,
Michael Kirk, Lin
Martin, Garry Randall, Rob
Collier, (Rotaractor)
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Thought for the Week:
District
9810 website
- for all the news in our Rotary district
Rotary eClub one - Rotary eClub One
Calendar of Events - check it out
regularly as it is UPDATED on a regular basis
Board of Directors - President Greg Cooper, Club Directors 2008/09 and their
Committees
Club Service List - All the other
Club duties
For contributions
and improvement ideas please email the editor, bmcewen@optusnet.com.au
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