It took place at Marks Park last Friday and thanks to our official photographer, Jenine Coetzer, there are lots of pictures......but none of her! There were roughly 50 people there and here's a general view of tables and things.
There is always Grace, Toasts and the Four Way Test. IanWiddop, in the red tie, was the MC for the evening.
President Amina Frense awarded a Certificate of Appreciation to Gift of the Givers which was received by Ahmed Bham. Various members of the Club also received one for their support during her year.
The Club awarded a Paul Harris Fellowship to Yakub Essack of Gift of the Givers. Unfortunately he was unable to be present and the award will be presented to him at a later date.
President Amina Frense also presented Paul Harris Fellowships to two members of the Club,
Lucille Blumberg & Peter James-Smith and Ian Widdop read out the citations.
And then the most important moment of the evening when President Amina Frense inducted Joan Donet as our President for 2013 - 14
After presenting PP Amina Frense with her Past Presidentual insignia President Joan Donet's first task was to induct a new member of the Club, her daughter, Samantha Donet.
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| Rtn Samantha Donet with her parents, President Joan & PP Graham Donet. |
We now have a mother and daughter as well as a father and son as members of the our Club!
President Joan Donet then introduced the Board for the coming year.
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| President elect Steve Du Plessis, Rtn Katinka Vreugdenhill, PP Amina Frense, President Joan Donet, PP Graham Donet, PP Peter James-Smith & Rtn Mike Vink |
Graham Donet then entertained us with a monologue. He has many of these up his sleeve and produces them at the drop of a cloth cap. We always enjoy them.
Graham and Mike Vink donated the wine for the evening, many thanks, and the food was remarkably good!
If you are like me your expectations of the food on occasions like this is usually just hoping that most of it is edible and you won't have to resort to having to eat something when you get home.
Congratulations to the caterers of Marks Park!
This Week
Our speaker is Yusuf Randera-Rees, CEO of the Awethu Project.
Awethu is led by young South Africans who believe passionately in the New South Africa envisioned by Nelson Mandela, and who are angry that our country remains one of the most unfair and unequal on Earth. After high school in Johannesburg we studied at Harvard and Oxford and worked on Wall Street, and became convinced that South Africa is wasting world-class entrepreneurial potential in our under-resourced communities.
We developed a business model around this idea and entered it in the biggest business plan competition in the UK, run by Oxford University. Our selection as finalists gave us confidence and momentum, and we came home determined to systematically identify the most gifted entrepreneurs in under-resourced communities, and provide them with the training and resources they needed to compete with the world’s best. We knew that if our model worked then the thousands of leaders we could develop would achieve exponentially more impact than we could ever achieve as individuals.
We also knew that these leaders would play a crucial role in overcoming South Africa’s debilitating problems of youth unemployment and marginalisation. We moved back in with our parents and began trying to prove our model, inspired by the incredible support we received both locally and abroad.
In early 2012 we emerged with small-scale proof of concept, and are now on a mission to prove that we can have the same success at a meaningful scale. By 2014, our goal is to produce 1,000 entrepreneurs from under-resourced communities with the talent, skills, and resources to lead South Africa to prosperity.
Ultimately, we aim to replicate our model across the African continent.
Gates Foundation joins with Rotary to boost polio endgame support
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Jeff Raikes, chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, addresses Rotarians during the third plenary session Tuesday via a prerecorded video message. Bottom: Actress Archie Panjabi explains why she agreed to be a Rotary polio eradication ambassador. Monika Lozinska/Rotary International
An announcement at the Rotary International Convention in Lisbon, Portugal, set the stage for a bold new chapter in the partnership between Rotary and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in the campaign for polio eradication.
“Going forward, the Gates Foundation will match two-to-one, up to US$35 million per year, every dollar Rotary commits to reduce the funding shortfall for polio eradication through 2018,” said Jeff Raikes, the foundation’s chief executive officer, in a prerecorded video address shown during the convention’s plenary session on 25 June. “If fully realized, the value of this new partnership with Rotary is more than $500 million. In this way, your contributions to polio will work twice as hard.”
The joint effort, called End Polio Now – Make History Today, comes during a critical phase for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative . The estimated cost of the initiative’s2013-18 Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan is $5.5 billion. Funding commitments , announced at the Global Vaccine Summit in April, total $4 billion. Unless the $1.5 billion funding gap is met, immunization levels in polio-affected countries will decrease. And if polio is allowed to rebound, within a decade, more than 200,000 children worldwide could be paralyzed every year.
Rotary and the Gates Foundation are determined not to let polio make a comeback.
“We will combine the strength of Rotary’s network with our resources, and together with the other partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), we will not just end a disease but change the face of public health forever,” said Raikes.
In 2007, the Gates Foundation gave The Rotary Foundation a $100 million challenge grant for polio eradication, and in 2009, increased it to $355 million. Rotary agreed to raise $200 million in matching funds by 30 June 2012, but Rotarians in fact raised $228.7 million toward the challenge.
“Now is the time for us all to take action: Talk to your government leaders, share your polio story with your social networks, and encourage others to join you in supporting this historic effort,” Raikes added. “When Rotarians combine the passion for service along with the power of a global network, you are unstoppable, and the Gates Foundation is proud to partner with you. Let’s make history and End Polio Now.”
Endgame strategy
Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general for Polio, Emergencies and Country Collaboration at the World Health Organization -- a GPEI partner -- said that the finish line for polio eradication is in sight, but cautioned that “it is one thing to see the finish line; it is another to cross it.”
Sharing details of the latest polio eradication strategic plan, he said the plan is historic in finally setting out the endgame, the final steps needed to wipe out polio.
“We now have the plan to complete the program of PolioPlus,” Aylward said. “And we have the backing of you, Rotarians around the world, to get the job done.”
Actress Archie Panjabi, a Rotary polio eradication ambassador, recounted how, as a 10-year-old living in India, she had seen children crawling along the streets, propelled only by their hands. The image troubled her for years. When she was asked to join Rotary’s This Close campaign in 2011, she said she realized that the children she’d seen were polio victims, and that by working to eliminate polio, she could help prevent others from suffering in that way.
“I came to realize that we still have work to do, and how important it is for people like me -- people like you -- to use our voices to raise awareness of, and support for, the global effort to eradicate polio,” Panjabi said. “As a Rotary polio ambassador, I will continue to do whatever I can to spread the word.”
Million dollar donation
John Germ, vice chair of the International PolioPlus Committee, asked Rotarians to reach out to their non-Rotarian colleagues to raise money for polio eradication. He also introduced Sir Emeka Offor, a Nigerian Rotarian, who announced that he is making a new US$1 million contribution to PolioPlus.
During a PolioPlus Advocacy workshop a day earlier, Offor had explained that his contributions to a number of causes are motivated by his humble origins. Now, as a successful businessman, he enjoys giving in order to help others avoid the circumstances he faced.
As a Rotarian, he said he takes pride in Rotary’s good work and in the organization’s leadership in the polio eradication campaign.
“I hope my means will inspire others to join the fight to end polio in Nigeria,” Offor said. “Polio can be eradicated in my country in my lifetime, and it will be.”
Also during the plenary session, Rotary Foundation Trustee Chair Wilfrid Wilkinson reviewed The Rotary Foundation’s accomplishments, all of which were made possible by a 1960s decision by Rotary leaders to use Foundation grants to fund Rotary service.
“Because of the one moment ... because of their ambition, I can look back with all of you at 50 incredible years of achievements through our Foundation -- lives that we have touched, lives that we have saved, lives to which we have brought health, education, and hope,” Wilkinson said. “And we can look ahead, in just a few years now, to a world free of polio.”
Future Vision launch
On 1 July, all Rotary districts will begin using the Rotary Foundation's new grant model, which has been known as Future Vision. Future Vision Committee Chair Luis Giay lead convention attendees in a countdown to the launch of the grant model Tuesday, as the plenary video screens displayed a rocket blasting off into space.
"We are at an unprecedented time in the history of our Rotary Foundation. We are beginning our greatest transformation," Giay said. "Through Future Vision, the Rotary Foundation Trustees have sought to strengthen clubs and districts by providing grants that can help them be more proactive in addressing priority world needs."
"We celebrate our new Foundation, with each of us contributing our effort and commitment to ensure the continued progress of Rotary and all mankind," he continued.
Jorge Aufranc, past governor of District 4250, also shared how the new grant model has helped his district make a big impact in helping promote literacy and economic development in local communities. He said the district feared it would lose its connections when the Future Vision pilot began. But in reality, what could have been a challenge turned into an opportunity to do even more good.
Aufranc introduced Mirna Pérez, the principal at Próximos Pasos, one of the schools helped by a District 4250 global grant. Pérez shared how a mechanical cow has helped students receive proper nutrition, and be more alert for their studies. It has also given them an incentive to come to school. The device turns soy beans into milk and a pulp called okara, and twice a week community members come to the school to bake cakes and tortillas.
"Now the girls are becoming confident women who can succeed through education and become a generation that can go much further than their ancestors," Pérez said.
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