Our guest speaker today is Heather McPhail. Heather is involved in Interact, she is a former Youth Exchange Student and highly involved in volunteering. She was awarded the prestigious Paul Harris Award in November 2013.

 

Last year, Heather decided to take time off and did some wildlife humanitarian work for three weeks. She went to Africa and the desire to do so started at a Rotary meeting. She left in November, did a three- week world-win safari and went to South Africa. Her first stop was in Victoria Falls, Zambia where she experienced Devils Pool. During the drier months of the year, the Zambezi River drops quite substantially, and from mid August to mid January it is possible to walk along the lip of the falls. This can only be done from the Zambian side. If you ever decide to visit Victoria Falls, always go in the dry season.

 

Heather did a safari to three National Parks: Chope National Park, Okavango Delta Park and Kalahari National Park. For the entire trip, the temperature was 40 degrees Celsius. She then moved on to Botswana and commented on the indigenous people. There are 100,000 Bushmen in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Angola. They are the indigenous people of southern Africa and they have lived there for tens of thousands of years. Like everywhere, the indigenous people are mistreated.

 

Namibia has the tallest dunes in the world. She did some hiking in Cape Town, South Africa, which is absolutely beautiful. In KwaZulu Natal Heather experienced real wildlife. In South Africa she went to a private reserve where all the animals are fenced in. The Wildlife Act provides free services of tracking the animals. Collars with GPS go on most of the animals.

 

As a volunteer, Heather had to get up at 3:30 a.m. to go out and monitor the animals. Being able to find the animals and sit with them was so much more exciting than just taking pictures. As a volunteer, Heather had to count the elephants that can completely immerse themselves under water. During her time there, 26 dogs escaped, they had to be sedated and brought back into the park. It was wonderful to be outside, in the rain, the sunshine and to be under the stars at night, great experience!

 

In March, Heather will be volunteering in Mexico with an Interact group.

I attended the Rotary HIP (Honoring Indigenous People) at Six Nations on September 9th.  It was a day of learning and discussion.  HIP amended their Mission Statement to read: “HIP envisions a Canada where every Indigenous Person has the same educational opportunities as other Canadians, every Rotarian is involved in advancing the understanding of Indigenous knowledge systems and challenges and every Canadian is engaged in building positive Indigenous relationships.”

 

I will be hosting a booth at the District Conference at Living Arts Centre, Mississauga, this coming Saturday, September 23.

 

Rotary will have a booth at Akweni Ki, on Saturday and Sunday, Sep 23 and 24  The event include an artist showcase (Sat) and Powwow (Sun).  Because of the District Conference, we are unable to man the booth on Saturday, but will have good representation on Sunday to present Rotary activities to the community.

 

On November 4, 7080 CIRCLE and Brampton Rotary CIRCLE will be hosting a conference at the Unitarian Church of Mississauga, 84 South Service Rd.E.  The event will be called Mno Bimaadziwin, Mno Miikan – Good Life, Good Road.  It will be a full day (9 to 5) of Indigenous and Non Indigenous speakers leading discussion on Reconciliation.  We will have interactive workshops, including the Keiros Blanket Exercise.  Also, we will have indigenous music, art and food.  Admission will be $50 per person, proceeds to Oneida Circle and HIP.

 

Stephanie Beaumier has introduced me to her brother, Michael who is Senior Counsel at Siemens Canada.  They have a program to replace laptops for their employees, which generates about 150 laptops per year.  I told him about various Rotary Indigenous programs that could benefit, including One lap top per child (an international organization connected to HIP that provides laptops to indigenous children), the hockey equipment drive organized by the Rotary Clubs of Palgrave and Etobicoke and the Dokis Nation project the Jerome Dawson is heading.   In each case, there is a need to reprogram the computers into Cree or Ojibwa.  There seems to be good synergies for this to happen.  Timeframe late November to January.

 

Alex Brown attended our meeting to talk about the home hospitality program at the June 24, 2018 convention. Alex has been to 14 conventions. 17,000 people have already pre-registered and he is predicting about 30,000 people from around the world will be registering for this convention. You have until December to get a discount on your registration. If you have never been to a convention, it’s a great opportunity for next year, it’s going to be huge! Lots of help is needed to man all the volunteer sites around the city and the airport. The biggest ceremony will be the flag ceremony. There are more flags in Rotary than flags in the world. It’s a great way to discuss projects and find out what other clubs are doing in the world and bring back ideas that you can use in your own club. It’s also a great way to make lifelong friends.