Newsletter for the Rotary Club of Western Endeavour - Issue No.: 1116 Issue Date: 21 Apr, 2024

Various club committees met at the Warehouse Café on 6 December, 2016 to discuss progress with each of the club activities and report back to the club. A summary of the four committee’s discussion- International, Club Administration, Fund raising and Community were presented by Directors of those committees or representatives. Before the discussion commenced however, Bruce Dufty made a short presentation on progress with the Aboriginal Reference Group activities.

Aboriginal Reference Group activities

Bruce Dufty has represented the RCWE on the Aboriginal Educational Materials Project known as the “Rotary District 9455’s Aboriginal Reference Groups joint project with the Rotary Clubs of Belmont, Subiaco, West Perth and Western Endeavour, Murdoch University, Southwest Aboriginal Land and Sea Council, the lawyers Slater and Gordon and the State Department of Education” since its inception. The project had two aims:

·         To raise the general level of understanding of people in WA  regarding Aboriginal history, culture and contemporary issues,

·         To affirm aboriginal students and build their identities

Bruce mentioned that the project was considered successful in 2015 and is being renegotiated to continue next year. Aboriginals were particularly pleased with the results of teaching aboriginal culture in high schools and wished for that part of the project to continue. The existence of widespread foetal alcohol damage was also identified last year as being a major problem and $3 million is to be made available from June, 2017 to look after permanently damaged children. This affliction is particularly bad in the Goldfields and in the Fitzroy Crossing in the NW of WA. Another issue needing attention is the high level of aboriginal children in the prison system. Up to 34% of children incarcerated in WA are aboriginal. Funds need to be made available for prevention rather than cure. $400,000 over 2 years has been made available to two projects to address this issue.

Bruce also mentioned that funds were made available for a project to lower the incidence of Trachoma in the aboriginal community. However, the Health Department had in recent years, been able to reduce the incidence of Trachoma in aboriginals to the low level of 2% and these funds may be directed to another project.

International

The first activity reported by the International Committee was the supervision of the education fund at Kimuka, Kenya. A report made in the previous club meeting mentioned the five students being funded. Two are being sponsored directly by the club and three others through personal donations. One of the RCWE students was performing particularly well.

RCWE also sponsors a RAWCS program (managed by John Boxall) to provide shoes and help with a school on the Korogocha slums of Nairobi, Kenya. The project is managed by the NGO Be Kids. Mr Kizito Gamba from these slums made a presentation to the club  on 22 November, 2016 describing how successful this program has been.

Not so successful has been the RCWE sponsored well project in East Timor. Funds for this project were made available through RAWCS in August, 2015, a site identified soon after but no further action has been taken. The manager of this project has been contacted for the funds to be transferred to another project in East Timor but there has been no response to date.

Club Administration

High profile speakers are being arranged for next year and these will be advertised to attract non-club members. Hopefully some of these will become interested in joining the RCWE.

A request was made for members to make an official apology if they cannot attend events and breakfasts. The Warehouse Café is currently only charging for those that attend and lose money if they prepare breakfasts for too many. Writers were also requested to keep up the good work.

Mention was also made of adding a “cover page” to the current RCWE style website to perhaps give the purchasers of the program a more club specific appearance. Laurie Dender is looking into this.

Fundraising

A fashion parade is being prepared as a fund raiser for 18 February, 2017. It is thought that a “white elephant” store could be held in association with the parade allowing women’s accessories such as earrings, necklaces etc to be donated and sold to improve the funding pool.

It was suggested that a male orientated fund raiser be organized for 2017. This could be a wine tasting evening, dinner at TAFE or other activity. Watch this space for more information.

During November, the RCWE joined other clubs in collection of bottled and canned food for Foodbank. This activity was considered to be very successful.

Entertainment book sales continue but only slowly and the Motorplex will be approached to see if funds on one night next year can be collected for non-cancer cure Rotary projects.

Community

No Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) are planned by the club for 2017 but  there is an opportunity for students to join the Rotary Youth Program of ENrichment (RYPEN). The club will be updated on progress with these two activities as more information becomes available.

The Early Act club at Rosalie is progressing extremely actively as is the Interact Club at Shenton College.

The club is looking for volunteers to help with driver supervision at the Balga High School and the dictionary distribution is also progressing.