2021 MacRae winners

While Kim has been involved in numerous local Rotary projects, her passion lies with Rotary International Service. Her first foray into humanitarian service on an international level led her to Chinandega, Nicaragua where she participated on five District 6400 teams working with the Children of the Dump by providing educational & health services to the people in abject poverty.

 

In 2012, Kim decided to venture further into the international service world by leading Rotary humanitarian teams of her own to Ghana, Africa. To date she has organized six missions that included 114 Rotarians and other volunteers. She has raised just over $1 million dollars and invested these funds in projects in all six Rotary priority areas.

 

To date Kim’s teams have constructed/renovated several schools. She has also provided school uniforms for the students and textbooks for all subjects for each of the schools she has built. Kim established a literacy project called “Pack for Success” which provides students with a new backpack filled with vital school supplies, toiletries, new clothing and a toy.

 

Access to clean water is often scarce in Ghana. Kim has raised enough funds to bore drill 25 mechanized wells and three bore drilled hand pump wells providing thousands of villagers with clean water for drinking, cooking and bathing. She has also constructed five sanitation facilities with flush toilets, sinks and showers further contributing to the health and well- being of those villages.

 

On the medical front, Kim and her husband Christos, a medical doctor, built a Baby Health Clinic and have provided thousands of malaria prevention mosquito bed nets for pregnant/ nursing mothers and their children. Thanks to a partnership with a local physiotherapist, Kim has collected and fitted hundreds of villagers with orthopedic braces, canes, crutches, walkers, and wheelchairs.

 

Kim has also organized pop-up eye glass clinics providing eye exams and reading glasses to thousands of villagers. Dentists who join her missions provide dental care to hundreds of patients suffering with cavities and abscesses. Kim has also established a layette program in Ghana and to date has distributed over 600 layettes to new mothers--mostly single teenage moms.

 

Kim established an economic development program she has called “Sewing Seeds of Hope” to provide teen moms, who often were forced to quit school, with the means of developing a skill set to earn a living. Armed with a new sewing machine and a marketable skillset these teenage mothers can provide themselves and their children with brighter futures. In

Originally from Damascus, Syria, Jude has led several projects to improve access to quality healthcare for displaced populations, particularly in Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, and Somalia. In Lebanon, Jude directed efforts to evaluate cancer awareness and barriers to medical treatment among Syrian refugees and Lebanese citizens. In Turkey, Jude evaluated the provision of health services and barriers to treatment for chronic diseases among Syrian refugees.

 

In Syria, Jude worked with diverse stakeholders to identify entry points to invest in rebuilding the Syrian healthcare system. In Somalia, Jude worked with local actors to assess the impact of COVID-19 on internally displaced persons and to identify opportunities to contain the spread of the virus and improve treatment outcomes. Beyond these efforts, Jude has founded an organization that provides water-purification devices to Syrian refugee camps. He has also worked with the European Union's Delegation to Syria, the National Health Service, the Council on Foreign Relations, Pharos Global Health Advisors, and Somalia's Hagarla Institute. His work has been published and featured in The Lancet Oncology, BMJ Open, Foreign Affairs, Science Translational Medicine, among other prestigious outlets.

 

In the fall of 2015, Jude entered Yale College and soon became a member of the Rotaract Club of Yale College, sponsored by the Rotary Club of New Haven. As 2017-18 Yale Rotaract Club President, Jude conceived of a humanitarian project to provide much-needed medical equipment (an incubator and an x-ray machine) to a hospital located in Adana, Turkey, treating 50,000 Syrian refugees near the Syrian-Turkish border.  He secured donations from other student organizations and organized a very well-attended on-campus fundraiser, which featured the artwork of a Syrian artist portraying the impact of war on Damascus and its populace.  It was through his initiative that in 2019 the Rotary Foundation approved a $52,000 Global Grant to purchase and install this equipment at the hospital.