2016 Zones 24 & 32 winners

2016 Donald MacRae Peace Award Recipients

 
The Rotary Zone 24-32 Donald MacRae Peace Award is an annual award presented to recipients from each of Zone 24 and Zone 32, to recognize and honor an individual or organization for outstanding achievement in international service.  The Award reflects the ideals of Rotary as expressed in the Fourth Object of Rotary, which is: The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.
 

Biography: Rotarian John Slipp
2016 Zone 24 Donald MacRae Peace Award
 
John Slipp and a citizens’ group in Woodstock, NB,  built a school. They were motivated by the life and legacy of RCMP Sergeant Mark Gallagher. He was in Haiti, attached to the United Nations Peacekeeping Force and helping to train local police officers, when the 2010 earthquake hit and he was killed.
 
Rotarian John Slipp assumed the role of co-chair of the citizen’s coalition and immediately turned his leadership and organizational skills to the school-building project.  As a result, the coalition raised over $400,000 from businesses, individuals, and Rotary clubs in District 7810.  CIDA supported the project with almost $800,000 more.

Building the school in corruption-plagued and crime-ridden Haiti brought its own set of challenges. But under John’s leadership, the coalition and its Haitian partners persevered and the Sergeant Mark Gallagher Vocational School opened in 2014.  The school was built to modern earthquake resistant codes.  It has capacity for 500 students and offers classes in carpentry, masonry, secretarial, agricultural and flooring/tiling.  The school provides the opportunity for young people to learn a trade, earn a better income for themselves and their families and help reconstruct the country.

For his work on this project, John Slipp is the Zone 24 recipient of the 2016 Donald MacRae Peace Award.
 
Biography: Dr. Raj Patel
International Surgical Mission Support
2016 Zone 32 Donald MacRae Peace Award

 
International Surgical Mission Support (ISMS) is a non-political organization that provides free medical care wherever it is needed throughout the world. ISMS was founded in 1996 by three friends who felt fortunate enough to be able to provide medical services to the needy.  Their first mission took them to Haiti, and soon the organization was growing in both volunteers and service trips.
 
The New York chapter of ISMS has been active since 2000, and board member Dr. Raj Patel has traveled with ISMS to a country in need every year since then. 
 
In 2015, a member of the Riverhead, NY, club visited Myanmar and immediately recognized that ISMS could provide needed medical services there.  Local Rotarians and the Riverhead community donated $150,000 to Rotary for this project, and when the Rotary Club of Mandalay reopened, it was possible to channel (and multiply!) these funds into a Global Grant. 
 
In addition to bringing much-needed surgical expertise, supplies, instruments and equipment to Mandalay General Hospital, ISMS New York provided education and medical training so that the local surgeons and nursing staff could maintain the quality of care.
 
For its groundbreaking work in just-reopened Myanmar, Dr. Raj Patel and ISMS New York are recognized with the Zone 32 Donald MacRae Peace Award.