Eyes Wide Open, in partnership with the Rotary Club of Melbourne South, has developed an engaging 14 day humanitarian tour to Cambodia & Vietnam with volunteer work planned at six Rotary projects.
 
Based on your individual skills, whatever they may be, you will be making a meaningful contribution to orphanages, schools, hospitals and a centre for disabled children. Everyone can teach English as a minimum! The trip will also include cultural visits to ancient wonders like Angkor Wat and sobering historical sites such as the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh. Click here for more details of the itinerary. 

As a Rotarian, you might consider this trip:

• As an engaging way to introduce a family member, son/daughter, grandchild or friend to Rotary. The trip will give non-Rotarians an unforgettable insight into the life changing work Rotary is already doing AND participants will get to contribute their own time and skills at each project. Nothing is more rewarding than helping communities in need of our assistance and care.
• To offer to a worthy recipient within your community. Your Club may consider sponsoring this person to attend as a reward for good community service.
• To see for yourself what Rotary is doing in this region of the world. It's a safe, organised and comfortable way to see the world AND make a difference.
  

Our Response: All clubs in District 9800 are strongly urged to lend a hand and do what they can to assist communities in fire affected areas. While Clubs will want to operate autonomously, it is important that we develop a coordinated response.

Clubs should contact Mev Connell, Community Service Chairman on 0407 059 514 or (03) 5998 2469 or email community@rotarydistrict9800.org.au.

If you require any information or have any information to share related to your efforts, please email bushfirehelp@rotarydistrict9800.org.au – this email address will also reach Mev Connell and Philip Archer.

Rotary’s responses are possible at three levels:

• Personal

• Rotary Club

• District/State/National

The aim is to find responses that can be coordinated across all three levels to maximize the effectiveness. The Rotary Club is the key entity in all efforts because it is the means of enabling individual efforts to fit within a coordinated overall plan. Rotary’s focus will be on collecting cash (not goods) that can be spent by affected people in their local communities to provide material support in the areas affected.

Bushfire Recovery Fund: Our District has submitted the relevant applications to enable all District Clubs to operate under the District banner for registered fundraising. Rotarians and members of the public can make donations to the “Rotary International D 9800 Bushfire Recovery Fund”, BSB Number 013 345, Account Number 2521 12703 or mail cheques to District Treasurer Trevor Mackey PO Box 189 East Kew, VIC 3102.

Rest assured there will be plenty to do in supporting local municipality recovery plans in the coming days, weeks and months ahead. As we receive word from those that Rotary District 9800 has been in touch with, we will be disseminating further information to clubs about how they can help.

What We Can Do

Donations to the Rotary International D 9800 Bushfire Recovery Fund will be of significant assistance. (as above) Community Service Chairman Mev Connell will be in contact with the State Coordinator and relevant Municipal Recovery Coordinators to identify hands-on projects that may be suitable for club involvement and will communicate further on this subject.

DG Jim Studebaker.

The objective is to encourage young people to learn respect and tolerance for people of all races, religions and nationalities. They do this by debating U.N. topics from their given countries perspectives. MUNA 2009 conducted by Rotary International District 9800 will be held at Lake Dewar Lodge YMCA, 339 Garrards Lane, Myrniong (15kms. past Bacchus Marsh on the Western Highway) on the Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th June 2009.

Rotary Clubs are invited to become actively involved in this exciting yet educational forum by sponsoring two students from a local school that will comprise a M.U.N.A. team. Students should currently be in Year l0 or Year 11.It is possible for clubs to sponsor more than one team. There is no cost to students except for the time and effort they put into research and study time.

Rotary International President Elect John Kenny announced his theme for Rotary for the next Rotary Year this week. His theme highlights the importance of building strong and effective Rotary Clubs with strong, effective and knowledgeable Rotarians. The 2009-10 RI theme acknowledges the important role individual Rotary clubs will play in shaping the future of Rotary.

RI President-elect John Kenny unveiled the theme, The Future of Rotary Is in Your Hands, on Monday during the opening plenary session of the International Assembly, an annual training event in San Diego, California, USA, for incoming district governors. "The future of Rotary will not be shaped at RI headquarters --it will be shaped in each and every Rotary club," Kenny said, "because it is for each of us --as Rotarians --to do what is necessary to keep Rotary strong."

Kenny acknowledged the Foundation established by past Rotary leaders and laid the responsibility for building upon that success on every Rotarian." Each one of us is standing on the shoulders of generations of Rotarians past, and it is our responsibility to determine Rotary’s future," Kenny said. The goals we set, whatever our action plan, it is in our hands to accomplish or not," said Kazeem Mustapha, governor-elect of District 9125 (Nigeria). "Everybody has to be involved. "Chuck Cicchella, governor-elect of District 6710 (Kentucky, USA), likes the theme's emphasis on the future. "I have always had a strong desire to nurture along young people. It's vital to us."

Kenny emphasized that every Rotary club is and must be autonomous. "Everything begins and ends with our clubs," he said. "Our clubs can and do work together; they work through their own districts, in cooperation with other clubs and districts, and with the support of our Foundation. "But at the end of the day, everything that we accomplish is done through the strength of our clubs. And so each club must have autonomy to serve where and how it can serve best."

At the same time, Kenny highlighted the importance of the RI Strategic Plan, adopted by the RI Board of Directors, as an essential tool in providing continuity. "The plan is designed to strengthen and proclaim the core values of Rotary: service, fellowship, diversity, integrity, and leadership," Kenny said. The training sessions for incoming governors during the weeklong assembly are all tied to some component of the strategic plan.

Kenny concluded his remarks by sharing a favourite saying from Scotland, his homeland: "We must look beyond our own parish pump." "It means that we must look beyond our own home and our own community," Kenny said. "We must look beyond our own needs, and we must be aware that ours is only one community, of one country, of the many communities and countries in this world."

Now is the time to engage the D9800 Rotary Leadership Institute to get the Rotary knowledge and to engage the D9800 Club Vision Team to assist in developing a long term strategic plan tailored to the personality and needs of your club.

DG Jim Studebaker

At the LA Convention in June 2008 RI President Wilf Wilkinson spoke of what he and Joan had experienced in his year of office as they travelled the world. Noting the many worthwhile projects of Rotary he paid particular attention to the tremendous job Rotary was doing in helping communities recover from the Tsunami of Boxing Day 2004. In RI President Wilf Wilkinson’s words “It’s been 3½ years since that terrible catastrophe. You don’t see it in the news anymore. But Rotarians haven’t forgotten because they are still rebuilding.”

The Tsunami’s impact in D2980.

A joint assessment team of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and United Nations assessed the cost of destruction and damage of property at around $1 billion dollars in the state of Tamilnadu and the Union Territory of Pondicherry. With around 10,000 lives lost.

Recovery.

Following the initial rescue phase, the relief phase and the rehabilitation phase District 9800 is now supporting the restitution of livelihoods. This involves tackling the fundamental problems related to health, education, drinking water, sanitation and literacy. Most of the villages inthe coastal area still require certain basic amenities for a better standard of living in order to ensure long-term sustainable development.

Grants.

When the Tsunami struck in 2004 the then District Governor of the day, Judy Nettleton appealed to Rotarians and interested parties in our District to make a special effort to provide funds to assist in the rebuilding of areas in southern India devastated by the Tsunami, this area in the main was part of D2980. Rotarians rallied to the call and a substantial amount of money was raised. It was decided at that early stage that the funds would be used to rebuild housing destroyed by the Tsunami and as a result District 9800 has developed four matching grants with D2980 and The Rotary Foundation, each of these grants is valued at US$41,750.

Three of the proposed four matching grants have at this time been approved by the Rotary Foundation and work is scheduled to commence in February this year, approval of the fourth matching grant by the Foundation will hopefully be received this February.

The grants are centred on the supply of fresh portable water and sanitation, and the provision of teaching aids and school furniture for school aged children with the aim of overcoming the health-oriented diseases and malnutrition.

A 1 Million Book Exercise for Timor Leste

This is a project that some District 9800 Clubs may be interested in. The project started 2 years ago when companies offered exercise books for 1c each as part of their ‘Back to Schools Special’ in January. There were severe limitations on the quantities and getting 200 during ‘The Special’ took effort.

A few people got involved and it became a game to see who could get the most. Last year when we started to prepare for the event, we aimed to get more people involved and tried to persuade the stores to help.

We told everyone in the stores we were from Rotary and about the project. There was a positive response which encouraged us to do more. This saw the quantity limits dissolved. If there was a limit, when talking to the checkout girl, we asked if it we could return and get some more, this was not a problem as long as we were not too greedy and left some on the shelf.

Another response was that you can get as many as you like, but it will have to put through in several transactions. Becoming bolder we talked to managers about buying in bulk. If they had stock and the timing was OK we would pick them up from the loading dock. A normal boot will hold around 2000. One hero arranged a 5000 book order.

So a good day was a few hundred, a great day was thousands, but the best days were when friends and family brought their contributions. This year it has been adopted as a District 9800 project with the aim to get 1,000,000 books for Timor Leste.

The Project

We have support and approval from the Minister for Education and full confidence that the need for books exists and that they will go where they are required. D9800 DIK will handle the dispatch.

While this is a D9800 project any Club or District can get involved and it would be easier to deal with the companies on a state basis. The need for exercise books in third world countries is infinite and our commitment to Timor Leste is only for 1,000,000 books. We will provide the location of all potential stores in Victoria.

NOTE: The availability and restrictions varies dramatically between stores and we will provide promotional material for our Clubs This is a project that anyone can get involved in and is a great way to spread the Rotary message. We will be in touch with all of the groups who are interested in Timor Leste and encouraging them to get involved. For a minimal cost and effort it has great potential If anyone requires further information please contact me.

Regards David Dippie PP RC Keilor 0408 174 773 or solatube@bigpond,com