Submitted by Keith Brokke, District Foundation Chair
When asked why I give to The Rotary Foundation, my answer is simply because I’ve been blessed in seeing where the money goes. My first International experience was in Honduras working on schools (painting refurbishing furniture and re-reroofing). The work wasn’t the thing I remembered most . . .
. . . it was the Rotarians we interacted with and the people who benefited from our works and their gratitude. They may not be rich, but they will give you their best hospitality because you are there to help them and their children make a better future for their country. In Guatemala, we are planning our 18th school since 2004. We’ve also built 4 clinics, numerous water projects and diesel powered corn mill grinding machines.
Duluth Harbortown has worked with Mano a Mano since 2009 building clinics in Bolivia. When Mano a Mano began in 1993, the life expectancy was age 46. Today the life expectancy is age 64 (just 25 years later)! When we visited Bolivia in 2013, Mano a Mano had just completed clinic number 137 in the rural highlands of Bolivia near Cochabamba and Icla.
On the African continent, we just completed 18 water wells in rural communities near N’Djamena, Chad. We drilled 2 water wells in Tanzania and will soon begin a water well in Gondar Ethiopia thanks to our Global Scholar Alicia Helion who identified the need and Williston Rotary who followed through on the well project. Superior Rotary (Paul Frost) is looking for partners to help build a hospital in Tanzania.
Pelican Rapid Rotary (Dave Gottenborg) built a school in Kenya in 2017 . . . their first international project in many years and Thunder Bay Fort William (Jill Zachary) with help from Duluth partners built the first Rotary school in Bolivia in 2017. A few years ago, the Port Arthur Rotary partnered with Thunder Bay clubs to build a school in Sierra Leone.
The Congolese project to fit leg braces on children (between the ages of 5 and 25) who’ve suffered polio is 65% complete. Heather Ranck of Fargo Rotary is working with www.standproud.org on this project.
We have five Global Grants in India this year. Rajapalayam Rotary built the Rotary Blood Bank in 2010, but could only collect 170 units (on average) per week, but they had a need for 240 units on average. So a Rotary Blood Mobile was needed to allow them access to more units of blood from rural communities. In Nagercoil (southern-most tip of India) they had an unusually high rate of cervical cancer, so they request partners for a Mobile Cancer Screening Van. In Chennai, India, Nipigon Rotary partnered with other Canadian clubs to set up a bone bank for reconstruction of cancerous and non-cancerous procedures.
In Bahraich, India (D3120) Detroit Lakes Noon, Nipigon, Staple and Central Lakes are partnering with Fargo Moorhead to provide dialysis machines for a local hospital.
In Meenakshipuram, India we are adding six classrooms to the 12 classroom school built by D5580 in 2015. These classrooms will be for biology, chemistry and physics with separate lab rooms for each. Once completed a Global Grant was recently approved by TRF to furnish the school with desks, computers, zerox machines, ceiling fans, library and text books and other furnishings.
There are so many reasons to give, but as your District Rotary Foundation Chair, it is my observation that those clubs who do the most, give the most on an annual basis. This is due to the fact that these clubs know how important giving to The Rotary Foundation is and their work will continue to do good in the world.