The Earth is degenerating these days. Bribery and corruption abound. Children no longer mind their parents, every man wants to write a book, and it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching.- Assyrian Tablet c.2,800 BC
Mary Zaunbrecher of the Rotary Club of Crowley, Louisiana was our guest speaker last week. Crowley is in the heart of the US rice growing area so many of us must have eaten rice from Crowley at some time or another! She had come to South Africa to visit her nephew accompanied by her daughter and after the meeting she had specially requested a visit to the 5C's as her Club had especially donated 500 US Dollars to New Dawn to assist with the 5C's ongoing project. As you can see she exchanged banners with President Jankees Sligcher and we look forward to a long and fruitful relationship with the Rotary Club of Crowley. Many thanks for your interest and help.
If you look closely you'll see Bakithi Kumalo, the bass guitarist who worked with Paul Simon on the Graceland Album and still does a lot of work with him. He and one of our members, Nathi Ndlovu will be performing at our Club Meeting on the 22nd February, Ash Wednesday.
The President's Award for Youth Empowerment.
This week our speaker is Gail Valentyn, Programme manager of The President's Award for Youth Empowerment that grew out of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme.
ABOUT TPA
The President's Award for Youth Empowerment is a registered non-profit organisation, which has been operating in South Africa since 1983. Our mission, with the assistance of adult volunteer leaders, is to empower young people between the ages of 14 and 25, by providing a balanced, non-competitive framework for self-development that will increase their self-esteem and enhance their capacity to achieve in whatever context they find themselves: enabling them to become responsible active citizens within their communities.
A DEVELOPMENT TOOL FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
Development is one of the cornerstones of empowerment. The Award Programme has proven itself to be a powerful developmental tool for young people. The core of the Programme is based on self-development.
The four pillars of the Programme, skill development,physical recreation, community service and the adventurous journey, change the youths' perception about themselves and their world and it teaches them about vital issues such as health, political and social life, as well as the environment.
Completion of the Programme also equips the individual for further training and fulfilling work. As the youth integrate the values of the Programme into their lives, they become empowered, believing that they can turn their dreams into realities. Empowered youth can make informed choices and are less likely to compromise their future.
The President's Award can be justifiably proud of the part the organisation has played in bringing about these changed lives since 1983.
CHALLENGING YOUNG PEOPLE EVERYWHERE!
TPA has committed itself to the ensuring that South Africa's youth are challenged to be able to look beyond their barriers and to set goals and not limits. We believe that the challenge is for young people to make things happen rather than waiting for things to happen. We believe in Challenging Young People Everywhere !
Discon 7 - 9th June, 2012
Discon 2012 Registration
Fellow Rotarians and Partner
DG Anton and DG Ann, Annetjie will be hosting the 2nd D9400
Annual Conference at the Champagne Sports Resort.
Following extensive negotiations with Management at the Champagne Sports Resort,
we have managed to arrange a number of Conference package options for you.
Click here to go to the District Website to download the registration form.
We look forward to seeing you in KZN in June 2012!
Rise of the urban refugee
DAVID HOLDCROFT FEBRUARY 09, 2012
In most of our minds the word refugee conjures up images of rows upon rows of tents or mud shelters stretching out to a dusty horizon. This tent city image further lends itself to a sense of temporariness and the associated idea that these people are awaiting rescue in the form of rapid resettlement to a western country or perhaps return to their homeland.
In the last ten years however the world of the refugee has rapidly shifted. The refugee camp is now the exception rather than the rule: 58 per cent of all refugees reside in urban areas, mostly in the rapidly growing slums of the cities in the global south.
Johannesburg hosts an estimated 450,000 people in refugee or refugee like situations. This is the largest concentration of refugees anywhere. Damascus, Cairo, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Amman, Bangkok and many others also host large forced migrant populations.
What is this significance of this shift?
The crucial factor is that, without a firm plan for onward movement, camps essentially trade the right to safety with a whole host of other human rights — to movement, to gainful employment, to education and so on. Without an 'exit plan' there is little to live for.It must be said that life in a refugee camp is never rosy, and the duration of stays in camps has been steadily increasing, Camps can be a hotbed of illness, violence and boredom. Most inhabitants adopt coping mechanisms for these long stays that vary from the clever to the criminal.
Nonetheless camps do generally provide basic food and shelter and a semblance of safety. For the urban refugee there is no such security.
In some cities the UNHCR or a local NGO provides money for shelter and food for three months only. In that time, the urban refugee is expected to: register with the authorities and begin processing their refugee case; gain a working knowledge of a new language; train themselves so they can find sustainable employment; and locate new accommodation, while at the same time keeping their documentation in order, their family fed, children in schools, sick people looked after and so on.
All this while negotiating a complex social transition into an often-hostile local population in an urban area characterised by high crime rates and crumbling infrastructure.
Little wonder that many become prey to criminal activity. Young women are forced into transactional sex to help pay the rent, men are forced to pay bribes to prevent their hard won hawkers permits being torn up by local police. Many work illegally in informal jobs prone to all kinds of exploitation.
The fact that some of these people do make a transition of sorts says much about the capacities within many refugee populations. In Johannesburg 75 per cent of the forced migrant population is economically active, 35 per cent to a degree that they are able to send remittances to relative back home; 83 per cent of Somalis and around 63 per cent Congolese speak English.
Surely this is a good news story. It indicates a new manner in which those considering assisting such populations must operate. Clearly the old camp provision-of-service mentality is neither applicable nor affordable. With leadership, imagination and in a spirit of cooperation the capacities within these populations must be brought to bear.
Yet governments, perhaps fearful of the long-term impact of local integration of large groups of immigrants on local employment, increasingly restrict refugees' rights.
In South Africa, the education system has in recent times relied heavily on skilled Zimbabwean teachers. This can be seen as a problem, or a short-term solution to an identified skills gap. What is to stop Zimbabweans being employed in training roles to capacitate further the teaching population?
Regrettably there is now talk of eliminating the asylum seekers' right to work, a short-term measure which will end up costing the South African community more in the long term as it tries to cope with the humanitarian crisis that is likely to result.
It is true refugee movements can be unpredictable, making it difficult to frame policy. But more recognition could be given to the skills base of refugee populations and their capacity to adapt to new situations quickly. In such cases governments have a clear task to educate the local population of the overall benefits that can accrue as, at the end of the day, everyone stands to benefit.
There is a need for leadership. Let us not be misled: forced migrants' anonymity in the cities of the global south must not be construed as a reason for the international community — particularly its wealthier members — to abrogate further its responsibilities. But new ways to do this must be found.
The first step is for people to come together to enable the story of the urban refugee to break the chains of anonymity and become widely heard.
The second is for refugee community groups, local organisations and international players to learn to work together, each bringing their unique set of capacities to the table.
David Holdcroft SJ is regional director of Jesuit Refugee Service for southern Africa.
Rotary news in brief from around
the globe
The Rotarian
Children at 83 schools in Hyderabad received 2,950 new desks during the 2010-11 Rotary year through a project of districts 3150 (India) and 1400 (Finland).
Rotary clubs around the globe have many things in common, including a commitment to service. All year long, clubs are taking action to make a difference in their communities. Here’s a roundup of recent club activities worldwide:
USA
Moved by the story of four-year-old Parker Reck, who died after falling from a second-floor window, the Rotary Club of Molalla, Oregon, joined with the boy's mother, Ashley Reck, to prevent similar tragedies. The club helped launch Stop at 4", which encourages parents to install stops that allow windows to open no more than 4 inches. The campaign is developing materials, available on its website, to help families select safe windows. Mexico
A shack with plywood walls and a cardboard roof used to serve as a school for 94 children in the Tráfico barrio of Ciudad Nicolás Romero. After Enrique Madrigal, then president of the Rotary Club of Tlalnepantla, saw the school in 2008, he launched a three-year fundraising drive to revitalize it. Today, it has six classrooms, along with a media center, kitchen, and cafeteria. The project cost 5.3 million pesos (US$394,000), about 25 percent of which came from the municipal government of Nicolás Romero. A dedication ceremony was held in May.
France
The Rotary Club of Verrières-le-Buisson, Essonne, raised money for polio eradication for a song. The club teamed up with the Consortium of Stade de France, which operates the national stadium north of Paris, for a performance of the Verdi opera Aida in October 2010. The Stade de France donated €4 (US$5.50) for every ticket purchased through the club. Rotarians from all over, including Alsace, Charente, Vendée, and Guadeloupe, attended the opera, raising enough money to purchase about 23,600 doses of polio vaccine. This past September, the club again worked with the stadium, for a performance of Excalibur .
South Africa
Many children in Missionvale, a shantytown outside Port Elizabeth, must go without shoes, leaving them susceptible to soil-borne infections and scabies, among other health risks. Dan Gensler, of the Rotary Club of Coronado, California, USA, heard Sister Ethel Normoyle speak about the children of Missionvale at the 2006 RI Convention and later contacted the shoe company TOMS, which provides a new pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair sold. The Coronado club and TOMS worked together to distribute the first shipment of shoes to Missionvale in December 2010. Since then, the club has helped ship more than 80,000 pairs there.
Ghana
In April and May, Rotarians from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, traveled to the city of Sunyani to visit projects that their clubs are carrying out with the Rotary Club of Sunyani Central and Sunyani Polytechnic Institute. They dedicated a restroom facility at Sunyani Municipal Primary School, funded in part by a Rotary Foundation Matching Grant, and distributed 350 antimalaria nets to schools, hospitals, and an orphanage. Malaria causes many infant deaths in Ghana.
India
Children at 83 schools in Hyderabad received 2,950 new desks during the 2010-11 Rotary year through a project of districts 3150 (India) and 1400 (Finland). The state government often struggles to cover teachers' salaries, and many public schools lack schoolroom basics. Kiran Kumar Reddy, chief minister of the state of Andhra Pradesh, was on hand for the distribution and praised Rotarians for their service.
Korea
District 3660 is working with a newspaper in Busan to fulfill the dreams of 50 children in need. The newspaper published articles about the elementary school-age children and their wishes, which included having their own computer, becoming a diplomat, and having enough money to pay hospital bills. The district is donating about US$900 to each child to help make those dreams a reality. The newspaper is also running materials from Rotary's "This Close" public image campaign to highlight the organization's work to eradicate polio and help children around the world. Philippines
Only 1 out of every 100,000 women in the Philippines can afford the vaccination against cervical cancer. With support from a Rotary Foundation Matching Grant, the Rotary Club of Sampaguita-Grace Park worked with the Rotary clubs of Bayview Sunshine and Hong Kong Financial Centre, Hong Kong, and districts 3450 (Hong Kong; Macau; Mongolia) and 3520 (Taiwan) to provide the three-dose vaccination to 105 public school teachers in Caloocan City in Metro Manila. Volunteer gynecologists, including Gianna Montenegro of the Sampaguita-Grace Park club, also administered Pap tests, detecting precervical cancer lesions in two women.
