President Bryce Leggatt resumed his duties this week after about 3 weeks in Europe.
Guests
G.E.M. Monroe – guest speaker
Paul Haskins – guest of Catherine Brady
Charlene Thomas – host parent
Augustina – our exchange student
Bob Simpson – former member of the club
Announcements
Bob Simpson was awarded a Paul Harris Fellowship in recognition of previous contribution to our club.
The sendoff for Dan Kalmats, a former member of our club and previous Assistant District Governor is to be held at Emma’s Back Porch on Oct 15th at 6 PM. Let Lawrence Leung know if you plan to attend.
The Polio Plus Day is Friday October 23rd at the Burlington Go Station from 7:30 – 9 AM. More volunteers are needed to hand out Rotary brochures. Let Catherine Brady know if you can help out.
Jim Brindle spoke to the Breakfast Program. More volunteers are needed. Contact Jim in this regard and for more information.
Gerry Willard announced that the clean up at the Appleby Line & QEW interchange is scheduled for Saturday Oct 24th, the day after the Polio Plus event.
Richard Pass reported on a very successful Leadership Camp this past weekend. 27 students expressed a big WOW about their experience which was organized and put on by numerous Rotarians including 5 from our club. Lawrence Leong attended as an observer and was made to climb “the wall”. Richard thanked Barb Keck, Kathleen O’Connor, Gerry Willard and Rob Sybersma for their participation in the event and its success.
Jim Brindle asked club members to step up to help with the Music Festival as several people are needed to be volunteers over the duration of the program. He will be sending out an email on this. Lawrence is taking sponsor donations for the Music Festival so help Lawrence and Jim out in this regard folks.
Report from our Exchange student – Augustina (from Argentina)
Augustina reported that she is 16 years old and Friday, she went to a Blue Jays game. On Sunday she went to London, Ontario and had a ride in a helicopter. She reported that she is enjoying school which is very different than that offered in Argentina. She takes 4 courses here per semester whereas she takes 11 courses over the full school term in Argentina.
Sergeant at Arms – Bernie Hanna
While several people got fined and gave happy/sad dollars, Bernie had the co-Sergeant, Ron Lambert announce that in the future, club members could give rant dollars where they could rant on a “speaker’s box” about a subject of their choice – whatever was bothering them or what they wanted to get off their chest.
Guest Speaker – G.E.M. (Gem) Monroe
Glenn Warnica introduced the speaker who has devoted his life to helping disadvantaged people in the world. Gem is part of Amarok Society, (see www.amaroksociety.org), which is accomplishing something extraordinary for world education and, we believe, for world peace. They go into what may be the worst slums on earth, in Bangladesh and Pakistan, to teach extremely poor girls and boys by teaching their mothers to become neighborhood teachers. By this means they’re able to educate great numbers of children at very low cost - overcoming barriers to women’s and girls’ education.
Gem primarily talked about what they were doing in Bangladesh and in particular its Capital Dhaka (formally Dacca) which I found out is the 11th largest city in the world with 12 million people. Gem described the City as the worst of the worst with the poorest of the poor residing in slums through much of the City. The slums are run by slum landlords who rule the people and try to keep everyone in a state of ignorance and desperation.
Gem stated that he got interested in this project by moving from the best city in the world to the worst one. He observed that the kids were not going to school. Rather than starting up schools the normal way - building schools, hiring teachers, etc. he decided to go to the slum and hire women to be teachers. He was told it wouldn’t work. The women (all Muslims) were kept in their own dark lives by their husbands. He was told that if he could get into these slums, he would never get out alive. However he persevered and his program has been a success.
Gem stated that the women because of their isolation and lack of education had a 600 word vocabulary whereas we would have one of 15,000 or more. The women were taught in their own language and learned such subjects as literacy, history, math, social studies, english, health, hygiene and nutrition. Whatever they learned each day, they were required to go home and teach 5 children what they had learned that day.
Gem passed along a story of one woman who stated that she was forced to marry at age 11 and thought her life was over. She started living again when she started learning. By teaching the kids, the women feel empowered and have a reward in life. By teaching the kids, everyone is moved from pessimism and despair to hope. Gem reported that at present he had 24 schools, each with approximately 30 women and each one of them were teaching 5 children. He reported that some husbands beat their wives if they went to the school but most went anyway. Husbands often listened in (around the corner in the next room) not to monitor but to learn themselves.
Gem stated that extremists rely on ignorance where they are able to distort the mind. By providing education to the women and children, they can be taught to think and overcome the future waiting for them in these slums.
While Gem has a valiant program in place here, he stated that the population of Dhaka is growing at the rate of 5 Burlingtons a year. Obviously, a lot more of this kind of thing needs to be done. Oddly enough there are several Rotary Clubs in Dhaka and a whole District is assigned to the Metro Dhaka area.
Catherine Brady thanked Gem for his inspirational presentation.
Moments ago (Sat afternoon) I received the following from Bob Simpson who was aware I was writing the bulletin and asked that I pass along the following about Bill Myles who is obviously not well.
My Dad is not at all well. He was taken to the hospital Monday evening as he was having difficulty speaking and could not walk. He became worse on Tuesday and Wednesday in what they said was a state of delirium (he was speaking nonsense and was hallucinating). The doctors are still trying to figure out the cause of the episode and are in dispute as to whether it was a stroke or series of mini strokes or a reaction to his medications. Until yesterday he was in a wheelchair. He has now started to walk with a walker and is becoming more steady. He is still very confused and altered but we can understand what he is saying. They have asked that the family be with him 24/7 in order to keep him calm and have familiarity. Mom, Kris and I have been taking shifts. It has been a very difficult time for our family. Please keep us all in your prayers.
Sincerely,
Nicky
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