Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Snapshots from Wine 10 - Part 2

The Rotary Club of Montego Bay hosted its annual Wine event this year on March 20, 2010 at the Shoppes at Rose Hall in Rose Hall, Montego Bay. The event was geared towards fundraising for the President's Club.
This year the President of the Rotary Club of Montego Bay has embarked on raising funds for the neo-natal unit of the Cornwall Regional Hospital and especially for the purchase of an incubator for that unit.
Please find snapshots from the event here & below :-


(Above) President of the Rotary Club of Montego Bay East Audley Knight with guests at the Wine 10 event

(Above) Rotarian Winsome Stewart





(Above) AGD Govind Chulani



(Above) L-R: Dominica Pradere David Tavares & Winsome Stewart




(Above) Lucea Rotarians enjoy themselves at the Wine 10 event

Above: (L-R) Kay Reuben & David Tavares








Bhagwan Chuganey in lively discussion with guests (left) while
Neville & Donna Anderson toast each other (right)



All Photos courtesy of Dominica Pradere (c)

Friday, March 19, 2010

Rotary Race to Literacy is in full swing!

Children's books donated by one generous donor to the Rotary Race to Literacy Project
Photo Source: rotaryracetoliteracy.org

The Rotary Race to Literacy project is in full swing!


What is this? An effort to collect a whole LOT of books

What kind of books? ANY kind – cookbook, novel, fiction, non-fiction, textbook etc. For adults or children

So what’s all this fundraising about? To buy books for children. This is a zero budget project – all money collected buys books for children

Why is the book drive buying books for children? Because there are not enough in Jamaica and the children need them for their development

Do people HAVE to donate children’s books? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Any kind of book will do. We need numbers and there are not enough children’s books in Jamaica to even match 242,624

Who is collecting? Until April 30th, drop off points are project partners across the country. http://rotaryracetoliteracy.org/drop-off-points/

So what is May 1-May 7? Collected books are donated to Rotary. http://www.rotary.org/en/MediaAndNews/News/Pages/convention08_bookdrive.aspx

And what is Rotary doing with these books? Giving them to the Jamaica Library Service. Some will go to Haiti, as appropriate

Why the library?

•The library is the best custodian of the books for the long term.
•The library has its own reading programs.
•The library is accessible to all people on a daily basis.
•Service clubs can always organize literacy programs around the books once the books are there
•The library has the broadest reach – 558 public library service points. In addition to the 22 areas of service to special needs clientele in hospitals, children’s homes, penal and correctional institutions, specialized service is offered to the visually impaired and persons identified as affected by autism. The School Library Network serves 927 school libraries”

Can you donate to Jamaica alone? YES – just let us know

Can you donate to Haiti alone? YES – just let us know

Why participate?

•Be a part of history – this has never been done before
•Make a real difference- these books are needed just for the target beneficiaries but to build a more stable society
•It’s easy to do and fun!

We can do it!

Friday, March 5, 2010

Wine 10 - Saturday March 20, 2010 : Shoppes at Rose Hall, Montego Bay

Wine, the annual wine and food tasting fundraiser
of the Rotary Club of Montego Bay, will be held on
Saturday, March 20, 2010
at
Tickets: $2,500.00 per person presold
$3,000.00 at the gate.


Tickets are now on sale at Fontana Pharmacy (MoBay only), Fairview Texaco service station, Montego Bay Yacht Club, Ironshore Total service station, Gymkhana (MoBay), Diamond Drugs, Digicel Blue Diamond, Jimmy's Supermarket at Holiday Village, The Commissary at Half Moon Village Shopping Center, Royal Shop at Shoppes at Rosehall


For more information, please call our hotline 848 3904 or email rotarywine10@hotmail.com

Thursday, March 4, 2010

HAITIAN EARTHQUAKE UPDATE: March 3, 2010

Inside the Petionville Club, a Port-au-Prince resort where some 50,000 displaced Haitians have set up camp, a woman receives a pedicure in a makeshift salon. The sprawling camp has seen the opening of barbershops, beauty salons and a market where residents sell goods. Photo Source: United Nations

At District 7020’s Leadership Training in Miami last weekend we had the opportunity to meet with most of the members of the Haiti Task Force at once. What a great opportunity to share our thoughts and experiences through all this.

The purpose of the meeting was to understand the most current critical needs that that our Haiti Ground Team feels we must focus on medium term while agreeing to commit to a long term sustainable solution for the country to be decided after the PDNA is completed.

We went around the table and got everyone’s input as to what we needed to do next, and how we should approach the future needs of the country. The response was amazingly consistent. In the short term we need to address the overpopulation of the schools in the various regions and do what we can to get as many of the children as possible back to school. That will involve a number of things depending on the particular region, but classroom shelters by way of tents or other structures, desks, benches, materials for those items, meals and tuition fees are at the top of the list.

A man gets his hair cut in a makeshift barbershop inside the Petionville Club, a Port-au-Prince resort where some 50,000 displaced Haitians have set up an IDP camp. The camp has seen the opening of barbershops, beauty salons and a market where residents sell goods.
Photo Source :
United Nations
We have asked each Club President through the Assistant Governor to identify one school in each Rotary Community that needs our assistance and to provide us with an exact list of what we can provide for each school to meet our objective of providing a place for schooling and social activity for the refugee children. It was also suggested that the displaced senior students and university students be used as tutors in the school system to make up for the extra students and limited additional teachers.

This will be completed by week’s end and we will evaluate based on the magnitude of the requests, and decide what we can do. We urgently need 20’ through 60’ tents for this purpose and hope you can all call someone who might have access to one or two. They do not have to be new or any exact shape or size. Please put the word out.

We have agreed that our response for the long term sustainable recovery will depend on the competition of the PDNA and the recommendations that come from the United Nations review of that document with the international rebuilding partners. We have agreed to put forward Haitian Rotarian Kyss Jean-Mary as our representative on the PDNA committee in Port au Prince. I will send a letter confirming that to the Prime Minister of Haiti later today.
Barry Rassin will be assisting with the Rotary presence at the United Nations when the recommendations are reviewed at that level.

Photo Source: United Nations

We asked each assistant Governor to provide us with a synopsis of their respective club's health and to report back to me by week’s end.

Barry is following up on our proposed $50,000 contribution for seeds through the UN Agricultural Cluster. I am getting information to clarify the routing of the funds.

ROTAH, Regroupement Oeuvrant a Travers des Actions Humanitaires en Haiti will have its NGO finalized this week and will be used as our primary consignee for the relief aid we send to Haiti.

We discussed many options and possible directions for Rotary to go in the rebuilding plan and were quoted a Haitian saying which I want to share with you all.

A dog has 4 paws, but can only go one place at a time.
PDG Richard McCombeDistrict 7020

Monday, March 1, 2010

Chilean Rotary member reports on earthquake


At least one member of a Chilean Rotary survived the earthquake in that South American country.Esparza, an Internet-based journalist, communicated Saturday by e-mail with The City Wire that he has been unable to visit with many friends, family and members of the Internet publication for which he works.He said phone and other communication lines are down in many parts of the country.

“I'm fine with my wife and my daughter, we are in Santiago, the capital and stand in a flat, has minor damage, many things broken. It was terrible and we get scared much, but we've still trembles and now we have again light and water, here in Santiago only breakdown some churches, and hard damage to highways and other monuments,” Esparza noted in his e-mail.

He said the major earthquake was followed by numerous aftershocks, which he said were strong enough to be “terrifying.” He said the hardest hit area was in the region between Temuco and Santiago in the middle of the country. Story Source: citywire






Photos above & below: Facebook Page: Help Chile through Rotary





An initial consignment of 448 ShelterBoxes is being sent to Chile in response to the massive earthquake that hit the country.

ShelterBox is utilising all its global resources to respond as quickly as possible to this latest disaster. ShelterBox Response Team (SRT) members Pat Prendergast (UK), Tom Lay (UK) and Traci Oliver (US) are currently en route to Chile’s capital Santiago. On arrival the team will join up with local Rotarians and the Red Cross to establish where the greatest need for emergency shelter is.

The team will be joined by 448 ShelterBoxes, enough aid for up to 4,480 people. The boxes are being sent from prepositioned stock in Melbourne, Australia. ShelterBox has a network of strategic locations around the globe where boxes are stored to allow a speedy response to any disaster wherever it may strike.

Head of Operations, John Leach, said: ‘The full extent of the damage in Chile is yet to be seen but there’ll undoubtedly be a need for emergency shelter.

‘Our first response team was mobilised as soon as news of the earthquake reached us. We’re now sending ShelterBoxes form Australia and once our team arrive in Santiago they’ll be working closely with Rotarians and other aid organisations to make sure the aid reaches the people who need it most.’

Urgent donations needed

With the earthquake in Chile following so soon after the earthquake Haiti, the need to support ShelterBox could not be greater.

General Manager, Lasse Petersen, said: ‘We’re responding to the massive disasters in both Haiti and Chile as well as other disasters across the world that aren’t making the headlines.

‘Whenever disasters strike they inevitably leave devastated families in their wake, families who lose everything through no fault of their own.

‘We urgently need donations to fund our disaster relief efforts, to help us respond to the current disasters and to acquire more tents and life saving supplies in readiness for future disasters.

‘I’d urge you to please donate and support our relief efforts and to help build our disaster response capacity to help those most in need.’ Story Source: ShelterBox