Monthly message from President Charles - Literacy, Health and Hunger month
This month the Rotary theme is Literacy, Health and Hunger, all three of which are core areas of focus of the Rotary Foundation.
Our Club has for many years been closely associated with both health and literacy. We have for been a stalwart supporter of the Dialysis unit at the Peebles Hospital, providing them with two Dialysis machines as well as TV monitors. And this year, we have been preparing for a global grant that not only donates a further machine, but also launches a public awareness campaign of the causes of diabetes and what each of us can do to reduce the risk of contracting this nasty disease. We have also provided free health checks to the general public through our annual health exposition. And we will be doing so again later this month.
As regards Literacy, we have supported the Ministry of Education as sponsors for the National Schools Spelling Bee and General Knowledge quizzes for both Primary and Secondary schools. During Literacy month we have read to some of the primary schools in the Territory, and we will be doing this again this month, to Enis Adams, Ebenezer Thomas and Willard Wheatley. And we have sponsored the Adult Spelling Bee for the last several years.
Our track record in support for both sectors speaks for itself and is something which the club can be truly proud of. There are some things which we should have done, but haven’t; in particular, apart from the Julian Skelton Scholarship Fund which lies moribund, we haven’t established a scholarship fund for main stream education. We haven’t done much to promote the development of IT skills in the primary schools. Both are noble causes and deserve our attention and perhaps had we had the funds, both would have.
Both the health of our nation and the education of our youth are areas of priority focus. How many work days are lost to ill health, from the effects of diabetes, cancer, alcoholism, drugs? What is the cost to gross domestic product and the economy in general? What are the costs to the national health care system? What are the human costs?
How many of our children are ill prepared for leaving school? How many lack the basic 3 Rs? How many drop out of the educational system because it does not meet their needs? What is the opportunity cost – the cost to the economy of a significant rump of High School graduates who will find it difficult to find employment and drift to the fringes, possibly to get caught up in criminal activities.
Is it acceptable to say “ this is Government’s problem; this is what I pay my taxes for”. Is that an acceptable response from a responsible Rotarian? In this month as we put the spotlight on health and literacy issues, please take a moment to ask yourselves; “what do I do as a Rotarian, in fact as a responsible member of society, to improve both the health of the nation and the standards of literacy in our youth?” and “what can I do?”
Charles Crane
President