The Unley Rotarian, 23 January 2018 (Jan 23, 2018)

Our Last Meeting

Venue: Damien on Fisher, 123 Fisher Street, Fullarton

Guest Speaker: John Peacham

Guests: David & Di Forbes,Tatyana Shandala, Ainye Stirling

Visiting Rotarians: DGN Tim Klar, John Holds (Whyalla), Geoff & Joan Callington (Dorchester Dorset UK)

Apologies: Judi Corcoran, Maria Galatsanos, Rachel Harding, Geoff Hill, Rhonda Hoare, Sheila Evans, Vera Holt, Bob Laws, Mavis Martin, David Middleton, Pam Trimmer, Ali and Soheila Mostaghim, Janet Singh, Nathan White

Attendance: 24 Members 9 Guests

President Heather's Announcement

1. There will be a Board meeting after this.

Guest Speaker John Peacham - Cows for Cambodia

Marlene Small introduced John who was a former member of our club. He was born and educated in Melbourne and qualified as an accountant. 35 years of his life was spent in the accounting profession before taking on the challenge of IT security and credit fraud. Linda and a pooch are his best mates.

John outlined the history of the events surrounding the Vietnam War when Cambodia was drawn into the conflict by the US administration. In the early 1970s, resentment towards the US led to the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot seizing power. From 1975 -1979 Pol Pot emptied the cities and slaughtered about 1/3 of the population, particularly those with any formal education. Today Cambodia remains an impoverished nation of 16m people, with 50% below the age of 22. The quality of health, education and infrastructure lags well behind that of its neighbours which it had previously led.

On a visit Andrew Costello (Cosi) was struck with the idea of creating enterprise and opportunity through cattle, and the charity 'Cows for Cambodia' was created. A cow can be purchased for US$650.This is used as breeding stock by the farmers to create more breeders and work animals. Over the last 3.5 years 400 cows have been delivered with spin offs for agriculture, schooling and self sustaining enterprise. A cow is loaned to a farmer until a calf is delivered and kept by the farmer......the cow is returned to breed again for another farmer. John joined a tour of 32 Australians and was involved in a number of allied activities made possible by the program eg building a house, school improvements (including a duck pond and duck enclosure), grass cutting (cow fodder) and the feeding of children.

The latest venture is the building of a cattle shed at a cost of $350k to accommodate large numbers of brahma breeding stock from Australia. Many cows in Cambodia are scrawny and diseased; the program provides cattle maintenance education. Cows for Cambodia is the largest agricultural charity in Asia and aims to deliver 1000 cows. It is a registered charity which provides feedback about how donations are expended.

John was thanked by acclamation.

Spots

Patsy Beckett reminded members to collect and pass on postage stamps to her.

Trevor McGuirk invited members to attend the meeting organised by RC Mobilong which is hosting RI President Ian Riseley in the Murray Bridge Town Hall at 3pm on March 10. He is also seeking a President nominee at next week's club assembly.

Visitors Joan and Geoff Callington (see opposite) who hail from Prince Charles and Thomas Hardy country in Dorset gave brief descriptions of their respective clubs where polio eradication and improving Nepal water supplies are their key foci. Joan lets Geoff sleep in while she attends her breakfast club......I guess Geoff starves one morning each week.

Behind the Badge

Alex Jonson was the latest victim in this series. He has been with the club for 33 years. Alex claims he was a good scholar at school........but there is no current evidence of this. He joined the Commonwealth Bank and enjoyed disposing of filthy money. His next career move was to join the Federal Department of Labour and National Service where he looked after their Central Recording System. The Department was not overly popular so Alex took off for a 10 month tour of Europe. Some of the countries visited raised suspicions of him being a spy...which is quite understandable....note the blurry picture. On return he worked on security matters and later with special employment opportunities for those with disabilities. He is currently a director of a company in SA and NSW.

The Final Word

Greg McLeod again won the appalling squares using the editor's favourite number.......how bad is that?

There was no time for happiness because we were running late!

Rotary News

Healing the scars of war

In the mountains of Poland, 26 children traumatized by violence get a chance to be kids again at Rotary camp

By Iuliia Mendel Produced by Monika Lozinska

Beneath the emotional scars of living in a Ukrainian war zone, Mykyta Berlet flashes the same mischievousness of any other 12-year-old boy headed to camp.

He wants to laugh, play pranks and on the last night of camp “we will cover everyone with toothpaste,” he says excitedly.

Mykyta and 25 other Ukrainian youths headed to the resort town of Zakopane in the foothills of southern Poland are naturally focused on fun. But their two-week respite organized by Rotary members has a higher purpose: To help the children heal and cope with the trauma they may encounter when they go home. Each camper has a parent or sibling killed or injured in the fighting in Ukraine. Psychologists at camp will guide them along the way during an itinerary that mixes escape and therapy.

Olga Zmiyivska, a member of the Rotary Club of Kharkiv Multinational in Ukraine, has brought children to the camp for two years and has witnessed its impact. “After the trip, they are more willing to make contact and open their hearts,” she said. Thousands have died and millions have been displaced by the fighting between pro-Russia rebels and the Ukrainian military in eastern Ukraine.

Growing up in the shadow of that nearly four-year conflict, most of the campers don’t remember a life without war. They tell unrealistic stories about battles and keep silent about real horrors. Some are guarded and hypervigilant. Others endure sleepless nights or nightmares. A few withdraw and emotionally shut down.

In Zakopane, nestled in the scenic Tatra Mountains, Rotary members give the children a chance to heal in a peaceful setting. The children sleep in comfortable cabins along a pristine lake flanked by green, rolling hills. The program, called Vacation 2017 Zakopane: Well-Being for Ukrainian Kids, includes traditional camp activities and field trips along with support from mental health professionals. More than 100 children have attended over the past four years.

Psychologist and art therapist Olha Hrytsenko helps children work through their grief. This year’s campers visited a mountain village to learn about local traditions, toured historic Krakow, and saw the castles, salt mines and hot springs of southern Poland. The routine activities are simple but powerful.

Yuriy Paschalin and Vlad Tsepun, both 12, became close friends after their fathers were killed by snipers. The field trips helped both boys start to relax and act like typical, curious children.

“This program allows these kids to stay kids and to live children’s emotions,” said psychologist and art therapist Olha Hrytsenko. Like many children, 11-year-old Dima Tkachuk doesn’t want to talk about his dad’s death. His father was killed in a military conflict zone. The task is not to forget but to find the essence of this loss and to learn how to be happy after this.

Creating a place to heal

When the conflict in Ukraine began in early 2014, Rotary members stepped up to help.

“We thought, why not organize vacations for kids whose childhood was affected by war,” says Ryszard Luczyn, a member of the Rotary Club of Zamosc Ordynacki, Poland.

Barbara Pawlisz, of the Rotary Club of Sopot International in Poland, and Łuczyn got support from the Poland-Ukraine Intercountry Committee. Rotary’s Intercountry Committees are networks of Rotary clubs in at least two countries, and they often work together on service projects or to foster peace between the residents of countries in conflict. Rotary clubs in Belarus, Poland and Ukraine participate in the network.

The Well-Being for Ukrainian Kids project started in 2014 with mixed results. The children, ages eight to 17, didn’t always get along. Their war trauma was recent, and communication between the age groups was difficult.

The Rotary members recognized adjustments were necessary, but they were not deterred.

Since that initial effort, organizers narrowed the age range for campers to six to 12, and the number of Polish Rotary clubs that support the project has more than doubled to 83.

“War takes from them their childhood. And they still have their children’s dreams.” After the children return home, they send letters and pictures about their camp experiences to program organizers and Rotary members. Children have drawn portraits, colorful scenes of nature, castles and the kings and queens who live in them, and dragons. Sometimes, they write letters about what they observed. One girl marveled at the clean streets and friendly people. “After such traumas as car crash, natural disasters, [or] wars, people often go to two extremes: Either they stop being afraid of everything or they start being scared of everything. I think these children will belong to the first category,” psychologist Hrytsenko said.

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