Katrina Flinn advised that she and President Andrew attended the Morning Tea with DG on Saturday 19th February which provided details on how RAWCS can assist Rotary Clubs and Rotary Districts deliver and manage high profile projects and seek donations for the project (a number of projects were showcased as examples).
RAWCS could be handy for RCH International projects, particularly if we were seeking donations from the public.
Timor Leste Projects:
1. Timor Student scholarships.
Katrina shall be meeting with Deraca O’Mahony from Friends of Baguia (right) this Friday. Derarca's update on the Timor student scholarships appears elsewhere in this Bulletin.
2. Possible project:
Proposed music room in St Josephs, Baguia, Timor Background: KF has also been attending meetings with a Rotary Passport Melbourne (RPM) convened group focusing on projects in Baguia, Timor. To date, RPM have shipped educational and medical equipment to Baguia . RPM has also rolled out the distribution of Solar Buddies (enables school children to have light to study/read etc in the evenings).
Leopoldina Guterres, Principal of St Josephs, Baguia and RPM member has requested support to substantially renovate an old store room into a music room (the existing music room is currently shared with the student library).
KF proposed that RCH International Committee consider being part of a consortium of Clubs supporting this project by contributing a sum of money to this proposed project (say $1,500) as well as collecting musical instruments that could be added to container shipments from DIK to Dili. Once arriving in Dili the instruments would be collected by Judite, from Rotary Liaison office in Timor for collection by Baguia community. KF advised that she has already collected 2 piano keyboards for this cause. Guitars would also be welcome. KF to seek more information, this is only preliminary plan. The committee members present indicated in principle support.
3. Days for Girls, Baguia
This project is now progressing with training underway of the program facilitators and training of local sewing hub in Bacau (organised by the Days for Girls organisation) . The proposed project will be a collaboration between Days for Girls, RPM & RCH. More information is available for those interested.
Clean water for Karen people in Myanmar (DisasterAid Skyhydrant.)
This project was completed in December 2020 with support of Disasteraid Australia and Fleur Maidment Safe Water for Every Child Myanmar. (jointly with RC Nhill).
Cambodia (Kampong Spue referral hospital)
Photos of the new hospital wing were circulated to the Committee members prior to the meeting. The building is well underway.
DIK:
Gordon Cheyne advised that Julie Collette is making a real impact in making more space available at DIK. The lack of space has somewhat limited sorting operations. Julie has been able to use her vocational knowledge to make decisions as to what donations are worthwhile keeping or not.
Thailand -Phuket medical equipment (collaboration with RC of Patong Beach)
David Rush advised that he is still working on list of goods (wish list compared to what can be provided by DIK) Progression of the project is contingent on arrangements that RC Patong Beach is organizing with Red Cross. DR’s understanding is that the Red Cross would negotiate customs in Thailand (Bangkok) and facilitate/pay for the transport from Bangkok to Phuket and to the hospital (RCH would meet the cost of sea freight from DIK to Bangkok).
The other issue is that DIK is waiting on containers to be available. DR suggested that he let Bob Glindemann at DIK know that we would like to order a 20ft container (noted that in the event we needed to cancel, it could be diverted to another D9800 project given the demand for containers), so there is no risk.
Screen Shot (right): The International Committee meeting by Zoom.