December 2020
The Rotary Club of Grand Cayman Sunrise - Clinical Support Through Telemedicine

For the last several years members of Rotary Sunrise and a team of volunteers would travel to villages along the Rio Cangrejal, Honduras, and undertake a medical and educational mission, within the Guaruma project, assisting the people of that rural area. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the International Committee could not undertake its medical missions this year. Nevertheless, in September 2020, the team devised an innovative strategy to provide the patients within the village access to medical specialists within the Cayman Islands.
The committee’s chair, Dr. Delroy Jefferson, the Medical Director of the Cayman Islands Health Authority, formulated a telemedicine consulting group in which the patients from the rural villages in Honduras gain access to 16 Cayman clinical specialists drawn from 10 specialties from the public and private sector (2 Orthopedic specialists, 1 OB-GYN, 2 Pain specialists, 2 Pediatricians, 2 General surgeons, 2 Internists, 2 Ophthalmologists, 1 Oncologist, 1 Urologist, and 1 Otolaryngologist). These specialists volunteer their time to the Rotary Sunrise International Committee and make themselves available after-hours to the doctors in the rural villages, for remote clinical consults. According to Dr. Jefferson, “It is heartwarming to see the enthusiastic show of volunteerism demonstrated by the Cayman Islands clinical colleagues.”
Weekly clinics are organized by specialty and commence every Wednesday at 4 pm. Drs. Melvin and Ana (GPs from the region) arrange the patients to be seen by the Cayman specialists, and via telemedicine video technology, the Cayman specialist provides clinical consults to often very challenging cases from within the remote Honduran villages. Both doctors have expressed gratitude on behalf of the villagers for the ongoing clinical and other support that the Rotary Club of Grand Cayman Sunrise provides.
To facilitate this, the Rotary Club of Cayman Sunrise had to put the infrastructure in place. This included, amongst other things, purchasing a high-resolution computer with a high-resolution camera for the clinic in Honduras. The clinic there had to be wired with high-speed internet and the annual contract for uninterrupted internet service (by a provider from La Ceiba) had to be negotiated. The project was fully funded through funds raised by the Club.

 

 

On 23rd September 2020, members of Rotary Sunrise and their guests were treated to a special storytelling presentation to mark Rotary Basic Education and Literacy Month. Three talented young local writers (the first-place winners of the recent Rotary Sunrise Short Story Competition) read their original stories to a packed room at George Town Yacht Club.
Elena Kish, 8, from Cayman Prep (winner of the 7-10-year-old category) read her exciting story titled ‘The Rainbow Star’. “I really like writing stories and I am so grateful I won this short story competition,” said Elena, “Thank you Rotary Sunrise!”.
Jelani Hanson, 13, from John Gray High School (winner of the 11-14-year-old category) read his Covid-19 pandemic-themed story ’00:00’ and Gabrielle Ramoutar, 17, from Cayman Prep (winner of the 15-18-year-old category), read the final story titled ‘Daughter of the Waves‘.
Back in March, when several literacy-themed events had to be postponed, the Rotary Sunrise Literacy Committee launched an online short story competition open to local students of all ages, to encourage them to use their creative writing skills during the lockdown. Entrants were required to write an original piece of 750 words or less about any topic of their choice. Rotary Sunrise sponsored the competition with the first and second-place winners each receiving a Kindle Fire HD tablet and third-place winners receiving a Camana Bay gift card.
“We were delighted to receive over fifty original stories from students at eleven different schools across Cayman,” said Su Mander of the Rotary Sunrise Literacy Committee. “The judges were very impressed with the quality of the writing, and a number of students and their parents let us know how much they enjoyed participating in the competition during lockdown”.
Kitty Callender, 10, from Cayman Prep placed second in the 7-10-year-old category with her story titled ‘Jungle Justice’, whilst Savannah Bodden, 8, from Savannah Primary School placed third with her story ‘The Emperor Peacock and the Congo Peafowl's Journey’.
In the 11-14-year-old category, Victoria Sleutz, 11, from CIS placed second with her story titled ‘Beans at Midnight’, and Cornelia Ecke, 13, from St. Ignatius placed third with her story ‘The Hunt & The Game’.
Sally Martinez-Ebanks, 17, who is home-schooled placed second in the 15-18-year-old category with her original piece titled ‘The Adventure that Orphaned’, and Tamia Mclean, 15, from Triple C placed third with her story ‘The Woman Made Out of Star Shards’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rotary Club of Grand Cayman Sunrise (Rotary Sunrise) held its annual Car Raffle draw on Saturday, September 26, 2020, to select the winner of the 2020 BMW X3 motor vehicle and three other prizes.

The Car Raffle draw, initially scheduled for May 2nd, 2020, was postponed due to the COVID-19 Shelter-in-Place restrictions implemented by the Cayman Islands Government earlier this year. Following the lifting of many of the restrictions, the club announced the new draw date of Saturday, September 26, 2020.

The Draw took place at A.L. Thompson’s in George Town and was broadcast live on social media with a number of hopeful ticket holders on site to witness the draw in person.

The winning ticket #2673 was purchased by Miss Lisa Vassell who was elated when it was relayed to her in a congratulatory call by Club President, Stacy Parke.

The handing over ceremony took place on Monday at G.T. Motors where the beaming Lisa Vassell was handed the key to her new vehicle.

Miss Vassell, in responding to what lead her to purchase tickets in the draw noted that “The Rotary Sunrise Club does wonderful things for our community and I wanted to support them when I purchased the raffle tickets. She further expressed surprise at winning. “I am so surprised I won but I feel happy and honored to have contributed in some small way to their fundraiser. Thank you Rotary Sunrise!”

The other winners of the afternoon were:

2nd Prize: Eric Brady Gould who won a round trip for 2 to the continental US complements of Delta Airlines;

3rd Prize: Gauge who won KYD 1,000 Gift Certificate compliments of A. L. Thompson’s;

4th Prize:  Oliver Smith who won a 50” Samsung television complements of Priced Right.

 

An elated club president, Stacy Parke, in her concluding remarks on behalf of the club gave a vote of thanks to all who made the raffle a success. “We are truly grateful to our sponsors, the fundraising committee, every Rotarian and Rotaractor, volunteers, and everyone who purchased tickets. It was a joint effort to make this year’s car raffle a huge success. We also thank KPMG who was on hand to audit and oversee the draw on Saturday.  The funds raised will go toward various projects in our community and also support other Rotary’s initiatives locally.”

This raffle is put on annually by the Rotary Sunrise to raise funds for various service projects the club participates in - each of which directly benefits the community. The club announced earlier this year that part of the proceeds from the raffle will go towards offering support to our community during this global pandemic.

 Rotary Sunrise would like to thank its members, volunteers, and the general public for supporting the club and looks forward to the next initiative.