Water Treatment Project
by Lorine Parks
Calvin Chan from LA Five presented Rotary International’s inspiring multi-district project, “Water for Myanmar’s Orphanages.” Led by our District 5280 and LA Five, this project began in 2006 to give orphans clear water for their health. Founded by J. T. Warring, its supporters have now worked at over 200 orphanages. Warring was present with Chang and helped explain the work.
Myanmar, formerly called Burma, is a small country in Southeast Asia which has been under a dictatorship but is now advancing toward democracy. President Thein Sein has freed from house arrest the civil rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.
By allowing its citizens to vote and speak more freely, Myanmar has opened itself up to aid from the United States. In 2012 the Senate confirmed the appointment of Derek Mitchell as Ambassador.
Prior to World War II, Burma exported rubber, but now its principal commodity is jade. However, it seems to be rich in oil and China is eager to exploit that, which intensifies U S interest too.
Rotary is poised to be reinstated in the country, in the city of Yangyon, formerly Rangoon, the capital (although some authorities still recognize the old capital, formerly called Pagan, now Naypyidaw). Myanmar is an ancient Buddhist country: Pagan was founded on 16 March 751.
LA Five will be a sister city to that club. By the way, LA Five got its name when it became the fifth chartered Rotary Club. After founding the Chicago club in 1905, Paul Harris asked a friend to spread the word to the west coast in 1908, and so the San Francisco club became the second, Oakland the third and Seattle the fourth. The idea headed south, and L A Five is the result.
Fetching water for a village in Myanmar takes anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour’s walk. But now an efficient water system can be installed at a cost of only $8,500 and will last for forty years. Diesel powered, so far the system brings water from wells already dug, to village schools and hospitals.
Henry Veneracion, a film buff, comented to the club that his first acquaintance with Burma was a 1945 Errol Flynn movie called Objective, Burma! You will be interested to know, Henry, that picture so delineated the conditions in Burma that even people who had been in the Burma campaign came out of the theatre asking, 'What part of Burma was that?' They were dubious, disbelieving, when they were told that was Santa Anita Ranch in California, the ranch of Lucky Baldwin. “We built sets there so lifelike that even the experts couldn't tell them from the originals,” said Flynn. “Warner Brothers took a lot of trouble over location, under very trying circumstances, to make it rough, rugged, tough."