See Rob for your tickets for the Peace Concert. Remember to invite members of the public from outside the club.

Re - Our participation in the early childhood development initiative in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Background:  In October, 2018, our club committed $8000 to support a very special international project...   

We joined forces with ten other Rotary clubs, including our old friends at the RC of Bad Bergzabern in Germany (many of you will remember our past exchange student, Maxi Monnerjahn.  Her dad, Jürgen, is a member of Bad Bergzabern and we previously collaborated with this club in the Cameroon Water Project).  

This time, we joined a group initiative seeking a Global Grant from Rotary International.  The Grant was subsequently approved, meaning Rotary International agreed it would match any funds the individual clubs donated.

The Project:  The project itself is bold and inspiring.  In many areas of South Africa, poverty seems to be an unbreakable cycle.  This early intervention project seeks to break this cycle through a process of ongoing academic and social education.  The unique element of this initiative is that it targets families with children between the ages of one to six and it doesn’t just seek to educate the children, it also educates the parents.

The objective of the Early Inspiration initiative is fairly simple.  If the parents can learn the importance of a meaningful education, and if they can be supported to strive for this goal, then their children can develop into knowledgeable and confident future leaders.  One surprising thing I learned about the project is that most of the participating families in this project are actually single-mums (this is a big social issue in parts of South Africa).

A major part of the project is to ensure that community members are trained to become teachers and practitioners of early childhood development.  Once ‘qualified’ they can then help teach others.

Outcomes to date:  The project commenced in 2019 and one year in, we have some fantastic outcomes to report...

- Professional teaching spaces were created in the Early Childhood Care & Education Centre.

- 187 people enrolled in the initial training that would see them become teachers/practitioners.

- Of the 187 that enrolled, 185 have successfully completed the training and are now qualified educators /practitioners (99% successful outcome).

- These new graduates will contribute to the program through teaching, home visit programs, and parent programs in their community.

- So far 4,625 children have directly benefited from the program however this number will increase dramatically as the educators fulfil their roles year in, year out.

- The program is now seeking to train these participants to even higher skill levels.

 

Spending $8000 of club funds has made a massive difference to the lives of so many disadvantaged people.  I’m delighted to share this report and I’m proud to be a Rotarian.

Graham Pennington

 

 

30 members +2 guests (Mary from not Sweden, and our guest speaker Sarah Brittain from Emma House) enjoyed our Wednesday meeting. In what is now a disturbing trend, the books balanced, even under Nooka’s purview. Taylor did however redeem himself by noting that on the previous week’s episode of the ABC’s “Hard Quiz” one fellow’s special topic was Volvos, with host Tom Gleason noting that “Volvo drivers must be the most intelligent people going around”. No more need be said.

The Community Raffle went out to at least 15 groups in the community who utilised 800 books meaning 8000 tickets meaning $16,000 injected into those bodies. A brilliant effort.

Peter Hayes is still looking for people to assist with the organisation of the Trade Fair. He is looking at dates on the 16th or 17th of June with a venue still to be settled upon.

James Mepham then remind everyone about the peace concert. It is out there on social media and he encouraged us to get involved.

President-Elect Gerard Barker noted that while Brendan O’Neill went to a grants conference last weekend, Gerard himself was heading off on the coming weekend to Creswick to learn how to become a president. He offered to share the trip with any interested members, but looked like he would be driving Pip’s Rotary bus on his own. We hope you enjoy the weekend Gerard.

Garry Askew reported on our ongoing involvement with Corryong in the wake of the disastrous fires. Haircuts, coffees, and now funding tickets to the Corryong theatre. It sounds a great and worthy connection indeed.
Graham Pennington reminded us to drop off any story books from prep to grade 6 standard so that we may send them to his Facebook teacher friend in the Philippines. Please think about it and drop them off to Penno‘s work by Wednesday 26 February.

Penno also reported that 18 months ago we provided $9000 for a rotary project in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, in conjunction with four German clubs, one French club, one UK club, and for South African clubs. It made a lot of money was applied in total with the aim to provide early intervention to break the cycle of poverty for thousands of single mothers. 187 mothers were trained to educate other single mothers on the importance of children’s education. Of the 187 chosen as trainers, 185 made it through the course. Some 4300 children are now engaged in the program which is a wonderful outcome.

Our guest speaker Sarah Britain from Emma House was introduced by Les McGrath. Domestic violence remains a real curse in our community, in common with the rest of the country. The job for Sarah and her co-workers is not easy, and they deserve our support. From the alacrity with which she accepted a tub of Maccas quince paste, she must be a bit of a quince paste aficionado (on a personal note this correspondence can attest to the extreme suitability of the match between roast lamb and Maccas paste!).

Finally, Glendon Dickenson delivered an excellent fines session based on the Melbourne to Warrnambool bike race. Great fun, and highly lucrative.

I should’ve written this report earlier and apologise for getting it to the editor late. Hard to remember what the meal was, which probably means it wasn’t memorable.

Robbo.