Jacqueline Duran introduced our speaker, George Poulakos (Rotary Club of Ventura), who has worked in advertising for 20 years and his own marketing consulting business for the past 12 years. He has been a Rotarian in Florida, New Mexico, and most recently Ventura, where he is the current international committee chair. He has also been involved in volunteer projects in South Africa, Zambia, and refugee camps in Greece. His presentation focused on a global grant he and the Ventura Rotary Club are spearheading, in Kazungula, Zambia.

The community in Kazungula has a lack of job opportunities and is quite poor, which means that many families are not able to afford to send their daughters to school. Young girls commonly turn to sex work to make money, and they are also at high risk for sexual abuse. The grant will help fund the projects of the Lushomo Trust/”Grace Centre”, whose goal is to develop skills training for local girls which will help them make the money they need in order to pay school fees. This program will offer training opportunities in three main areas: tailoring (which will allow them to create school uniforms for themselves and for schools), computer training, and catering/restaurant management (with the goal of creating a restaurant to aid in generating revenue to further support the program).

George described how the global grant will specifically be for the catering and restaurant aspect of the program (to buy restaurant equipment and hire staff to manage the restaurant and catering service as well as to train the girls). The goal is for the restaurant to be up and running and to be sustainable in 3 years. Rotary members had a great Q&A with Mr. Poulakos and we all learned quite a bit about this important and wonderful project. Thank you George!

 

Patricia Juin drew a white marble, and Tim Hardy won the fruit basket.