Our speaker last week was Warren McGregor who is our first recipient of the Rotary New Dawn Scholarship in conjunction with the Department of Sociology at Wits. He's looking at the history and background of different social models particularly those espoused by political and trades union movements in South Africa. What a pleasant change to have a radical speaker! Our Club is a little anarchist but not anarchist enough otherwise it wouldn't exist! I thought it would be fun to have a few symbols on the blog this week, some radical and others not so radical...trades union are always conservative!
There is no prize for knowing them all. The words of The Red Flag came to mind whilst I was thinking about this. Those condemned to death following the South African 1922 Miners' Uprising sang it as they walked to the gallows until the noose choked it out of them. The last verse says it all!
With head uncovered swear we all
And here we all are at the meeting! We welcomed back our President Jankees Sligcher and our Secretary Mike Vink after their holidays and I am sure our other members will be back soon.
My apologies for not yet being 100% on top of our speakers for the new Rotary Year. I am nearly there and you shouldn't have great gaps in the future.
Our speaker this week is Nkanyesi Myeni, a learner at Macauley House School who Don Lindsey has been assisting. She will be talking about "How People can effect other People's lives" and as our former member Eleanor Hough will be accompanying her it will no doubt give some insight as to how some of us maybe able to assist, unknowingly, learners on a one to one basis.
Please make every effort to attend the Club Assembly on Saturday 23rd July. It usually starts at 9,00am and is held at Twickenham Guest House, see the side bar, Jankees will confirm this on Wednesday. This meeting is very important as it sets the programme for the year for the Club's approval. The President and Board members will ask our approval of their plans for Projects, Membership, Fundraising, Foundation etc and ask the Club to approve their budget requests. The Club Assembly will also be asked to approve the Club Subscription for the year so it is important that we attend even if we cannot stay for the whole meeting.
Tanzanian Ailinda Sawe
Alinda Sawe
WWhen Ailinda Sawe finished her coursework in fashion design in 1983, she could have stayed in Manchester, England, to work. Instead, she returned home to Tanzania. “Some of my people are not even dressed,” she told friends in England. “I’m going back to dress my people.”She incorporated the traditional designs of some of Tanzania’s more than 120 tribes into her work and, in doing so, transformed the kanga, a rectangular piece of material that’s a wardrobe staple in East Africa, into haute couture. “To know that our people were so rich in costumes, jewelry – what they did with their hair, with their skin – so many designs, it was amazing,” says Sawe, whose company is called Afrika Sana, Swahili for “truly Africa.”
She also founded a nonprofit, Mtoto wa Afrika, to bring art and culture to children.
In 2009, after visiting the Dar-es-Salaam-Mzizima club to ask for support, she decided to join. “I found a fellowship where every nation, every color, all of humanity can be like a family,” she says. “I’ve got a place where I can serve my people and serve the world.”
Arts and crafts
Hannah Warren (right) helps Deepa, a seamstress, adjust her new sewing machine, which was donated by Jhoole.
Hannah Warren, a former Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar, traveled to the Khargone region of Madhya Pradesh, India, in 2008. She was working on a photography project to document local women weaving saris and fell in love with the colorful patterns they created. But she noticed that the women didn't wear the garments they made.
“They couldn’t afford them,” explains Warren, 26, noting how little they earned from their craft.
Her admiration for the weaver's talents and desire to help them gain financial independence soon blossomed into Jhoole, a fair trade business that provides the women with regular wages. The 25 weavers who work for Jhoole create and sell items such as saris, crushed cotton scarves, and recycled denim skirts. When the business makes money, the whole community benefits.
Jhoole reinvests 80 percent of the profits back into the company and donates the remaining 20 percent to local projects through Chetanya Sewa, a nongovernmental organization that supports local programs.
“I was surprised that so many people came forward to help,” Warren says of the assistance she has received from Rotarians. The Rotary Club of Khargone and five clubs in District 6420 (Illinois, USA) have partnered on a Rotary Foundation Matching Grant project benefiting the Jhoole weavers. Rotarians in District 3040 (India) also have volunteered their time and effort to make the business a success.
"Most of these women have never owned a sari," Warren says. "Now as a member of Jhoole, they weave them and wear them."
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