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On Sunday 29th April, a large contingent of Werribee Rotarians and family members rolled up to a location in Heaths Road, Werribee with shovels and hammers to plant 750 trees. This was part of Rotary International's challenge to plant 1.2 million trees by Earth Day.

The challenge was for all Rotary clubs around the world to plant one tree for every member. Werribee Rotary decided to do better than that and plant a tree for every year of service of all members in the club. The club has 36 members with a total of 750 years of service. Therefore, the aim was to plant 750 trees and, after much back-breaking work, the goal was achieved in 3 hours. A fantastic team effort by everyone.

Chief organisers Jason Daddy and Kathryn Williams deserve credit for planning such a great day. But every participant should be very proud of their contribution to greening the world.

Click here to see photos of the day.

CHEQUE PRESENTED TO MERCY HOSPITAL

Peter Copp is the Executive Director of the Werribee Mercy Health Foundation and he was at our meeting to receive a cheque for $20,000 from President Ross.

Peter thanked us for the very generous donation which was made possible through funds raised at our Golf Day. The foundation target was $2 million and, with only several months to go, approximately $1.5 million has been raised. Peter is confident that, with a bit more publicity and promotion, they will reach their goal.

He said the funds will now make critical care in Wyndham possible. He cited a recent incident where, after giving birth in the birthing ward at the hospital, a woman fell gravely ill. The only available hospital with a vacant critical care bed was in Frankston where she stayed for 5 days before returning home to be with her new-born child and her family. In the future, this situation will not happen.

Peter explained that the new building is nearly finished. Here is an image of what it will look like.

CLUB SUPPORTS ROTARY FOUNDATION

Pictured above is President Ross and Ian Knight presenting a cheque for $4,000 to Dennis Shore who is the Chair of the District 9800 Foundation Committee. Every year the club, and many other clubs in the District, donate to the Foundation.

Dennis believes the Foundation is magic. He explained that Rotary Foundation grants perform magical projects and programs to make people's lives better.

The Foundation's mission is to enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, peace and goodwill through the improvement of health, the support of education and the alleviation of poverty.

Rotary Foundation focuses on six key areas of support:

Disease Prevention and Treatment - PolioPlus has been the Foundation's cornerstone project for the last 30 years. In 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio. Thanks to the Foundation, the number of cases so far this year has been reduced to 5. Therefore, children are still at risk until we eliminate the disease entirely. However, disease prevention is not just all about polio. A more recent project that involves 14 Australian Districts and 13 clubs in our own District is to eliminate malaria in Timor Leste.
Peace and Conflict Prevention and Resolution - up to 100 fellows a year train at 6 Rotary Peace Centres around the world to become the next generation of peacemakers. There are 3 Australians who are involved in this program in 2018.
Basic Education and Literacy - this program enables Rotarians to provide technology, teacher training, vocational training teams and text books to underprivileged communities. Some of the projects that our clubs are involved in include a 3-year teacher training program in Nepal and equal education for blind students in Istanbul.
Water and Sanitation - Werribee Rotary has been the recipient of Foundation funding to help build a new bore water system in Uganda. There are many other examples of this around the world.
Economic and Community Grants
Maternal and Child Health

Dennis explained that, while the Foundation is a wonderful source of funding for many worthy projects, we need to "feed the giving tree" to ensure that it continues to provide on-going support. The Rotary Foundation is the only charity organisation that has had a 100% rating for the last 10 years. It is rated as the best charity organisation in the world. This can only continue if clubs and individuals are prepared to regularly fund it.

BRIAN PRESENTED WITH ROYCE ABBEY AWARD

David Abbey (pictured right) gave a short talk on the history and importance of the scholarship named after his father, Past RI President Royce Abbey and his mother Jean Abbey. The idea of the scholarship was formulated in 1989, the year after Royce's year as President. It is designed to support and fund selected people from under-developed nations to come to Australia to learn more about their vocation with a view to utilising their new-found knowledge back in their country. Our very own Chris Ochaya from Uganda was a recipient of this scholarship.

David also talked about the Royce Abbey Award which is given to Rotarians who have shown a strong commitment to helping the scholarship recipients. If a club wishes to nominate someone for the award, they pay $1,000 towards to the Scholarship Fund. Since its inception, there have been 327 awards presented which has amounted to $327,000 being given to the fund. Recently, our current RI President, Ian Riseley, was presented with a Royce Abbey Award.

David thanked our club for taking on the very large responsibility of hosting Chris. He believes that this was one of the most successful scholarship projects. He advised that Werribee Rotary recently contributed $1,000 to the fund and, in parallel with that, had nominated Brian Ahmed to receive the Royce Abbey Award for his dedication in supporting Chris during his 3-month stay in Victoria.

Brian expressed his thanks for this recognition but was quick to point out that he was helped by other Rotarians and many agricultural businesses that hosted Chris and taught him some invaluable farming lessons.

HOW GOOD IS GOLF?

Pictured above are a happy team of golfers who played in the Werribee Rotary annual golf day on Friday March 2.

The event was held in fantastic weather and a near-full field, consisting of golfers of varying capabilities, competed for bragging rights or were just in it for a casual walk around the course. Regardless of their motives, they came with great spirit knowing that their funds were contributing to a wonderful cause - the critical care unit at the Werribee Mercy Hospital. It is estimated that the club will raise in excess of $25,000 which is a record amount.

Congratulations must go to the hard-working committee, ably led by President Ross Conley, and a group of committed volunteers who made sure that this day was the best ever.

For those interested in the outcome of the game, the winners were the Awesome Foursome consisting of Graham Roper, James Dunne, James Anderson and Ian Hovey. Graham and Ian had to bear the brunt of the scoring but they were grateful that the other two were able to contribute from time to time.

Click here to view some great photos of the successful day.

GOAT SHED ERECTED AT TAMARIND

Pictured above is the latest construction built by Chris Ochaya and his friends at the Tamarind Farm in Uganda. You will recall that Chris was in Australia last year as a Royce and Jean Abbey Scholarship recipient to learn farming techniques.

His previous project was the erection of a water tank stand and a pump house which is now functioning well and supplying fresh water for the local communities and for the farm.

The new building is a goat shed. When Chris was in Australia he learnt some valuable lessons about how goats should be protected and housed. Part of the erection includes a raised section where the animals can rest without wallowing in their own waste. The goats will be a very useful food source and will provide both milk and meat for the community. The milk will be an on-going donation. The meat will be a once-off sacrifice.

The poles pictured in the foreground of the photo will be used for the erection of the poultry shed which is the next big project on Chris's list.

Click here to see a few more photos of the goat shed.

ANOTHER NEW WHEELCHAIR DONATED

Pictured above is Michael Redding in Vietnam presenting the third of four new tricycle wheelchairs to Lien who lives in Vung Tau with her family. She was born with a severely deformed hipbone and joints and her legs are shrunken. She moves by dragging herself along by her hands.

She uses an old wheelchair inside her home. Her new tricycle wheelchair now allows her the freedom to travel independently to other places.

The wheelchairs have been funded by our club.

RYLA PROVES A WINNER FOR ALEK

Alek Akuie was our representative at the recent RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Award) camp in Mt Evelyn. With humour, sincerity and much enthusiasm, she told us about her week-long experience.

When she arrived at the camp, she was extremely nervous as were all the other attendees. She felt way out of her comfort zone. However, it wasn't long before they were bonding, thanks to the leaders who encouraged the group to do some fun things together. By Day 2, many friendships had already started to develop.

Alek was very impressed with the quality of the speakers. Their subjects generally related to leadership and building confidence. She was particularly moved by the presentation of a young lady called Annie who, as a young girl, wanted to be an actor. Sadly, she was involved in a fire which resulted in scars to 50% of her body. Now she goes around Australia talking to people about not giving up, no matter how adverse your personal circumstances may be. In fact, Alek and her friends were so encapsulated by Annie's speech that tears were shed, partly through sympathy but mainly through inspiration.

Alek believes that she learnt so much from her RYLA experience. As she embarks on her working life, hopefully in the police force, she feels she will be a better person and a stronger leader. She also believes that she can do so much more by working within the Sudanese community. She has even used her new-found experience to great effect by being part of a camp for less fortunate kids.

Everyone agreed that the vibrancy and enthusiasm portrayed by Alek will result in her having a successful future regardless of what she does.

Here is a photo of Alek and her friends at the RYLA camp.

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