Notes from Rotary Meeting, Aug. 11, 2021
Land Acknowledgement – Judy
Invocation - Everton
Announcements:
Honourary member Wayne Stevens and his wife Susan celebrated 57 years of marriage on Aug 1st along with John and Brenda Thompson, who celebrated 12 years of marriage on the same day – Aug 1st. Aug 8th, Brad and Tammy Swanson are celebrating 29 years together.
There are also two club anniversary’s – John Villemaire has been with the club for 24 years and Ian Robertson for 21 years.
Best wishes to all of our members celebrating these special moments.
Everton: Backpack campaign - 78 of 80 target reached with $1,000 plus for supplies. He will be purchasing supplies this week.
Club members stumped on the “Guess The Rotarian Game” using info from 40 years ago.
Guest Speaker: Nevine Yassa
Introduction by Bill Pegg:
A member of the Rotary Club of Scarborough, Ontario, Canada since 1999, Nevine was born in Egypt and has been living in Canada for over 37 years went to Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario obtains her Masters's of Education. Nevine also published research and Drama in 1999 about the effects of Drama education in students. Nevine was accepted in Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) to pursue her doctorate but due to family reasons had to opt-out. Currently, Nevine is an educator teaching French with the Toronto School Board.
Nevine was a Rotaractor and translated the Rotaract constitution from English into Arabic which was distributed in Egypt in 1983. Hence, Nevine is considered one of the 3 percent of Rotaractors who continue to be Rotarians. Nevine was District 7070 Chair of Rotary- ICC in 2014-20, National Coordinator for Rotary-ICC Canada from 2014-2020, and currently Director of Club and vocational Services at her Club as well as a member of District 7070 Peace Committee.
Internationally, Nevine was Rotary ICC Regional coordinator tor North America and Mexico from From 2018-2020 and attended numerous Rotary Conventions. Nevine had the honor of being a panelist at the Rotary Convention in Hamburg in 2019 talking about Girl’s Education as a game-changer.
Nevine organized various global grants for Ethiopia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Egypt. Nevine attended various RI Conferences.
Nevine is the founder of Rising Out of the Ashes (ROOTA) a Canadian charitable organization to help a marginalized community in Egypt with literacy. Rotary has been a great supporter of ROOTA.
Nevine is married to her Husband Sol Sonbol who is a physician and together they enjoy traveling the world with Oscar ( our Collie) but with COVID they enjoy now long walks nda golfing, and swimming during the summer...
Talk for today:
ROOTA – Rising Out Of the Ashes.
Cdn Charity. Helping a marginalized community in Egypt called the Zabaleen. Who are they? Cairo’s garbage collectors. Originally farmers in the 40s working in upper Egypt. They migrated to Cairo for better opportunities but became garbage collectors.
They start at 2 – 3 in the morning. When the streets are not busy. They collect from the apartments and take it to the donkey carts where garbage is transported to Garbage city where whey sift through the garbage and do the recycling.
Roota helps with primarily with education and income generating activities. Whole program involves work in Environment, Education, Employment and Empowerment.
Education includes adult education (literacy) and children’s education (pre and after school programs.)
About 75% of Children are able to get the primary certificate through the program.
For Zabaleen women it is about access to continuing higher education. A four year commitment by ZOOT helps women with this.
Income generating activities: Some people through the literacy program want to continue onto income generating activities through three month programs in working with looms, sewing machines, paper processing, and glass processing. Factories provide remnant materials for the trainees to use. Kids are welcome to come with their parents and encourages to come and learn. Once through programs participants have access to microcredit loans to purchase equipment and supplies so start income generating activities.
