Wilkommen! Two New Members Inducted

A shattered wine glass, given a hefty whack! with a spoon by Dr Nobs Mwanda Motjuwadi of Copessa, introduced her talk about her work with abused and neglected children at the meeting last week.
     If anybody hadn't been paying attention before that, the certainly were afterwards.
     Children get scarred for life by abuse and she likened many of them to shattered souls.

Dr Nobs with the shattered glass

     "We try to piece the soul together, but it is impossible because of all the tiny fragments."
     "It's a better science to try to keep the children out of the way of harm," she said.
     She's a medical practitioner who qualified at Wits in 1988 and is now CEO of Copessa, which was founded 15 years ago in the wake of an incident of infant rape in Alexandra.
     With the help of the singer Sibongile Khumalo, Codessa was established as an NGO to create play parks in areas where children could spend time outdoors in safety.

The shattered glass symbolising the shattered soul of a child

      They have also subsequently established an "adult" park with an outdoor gym where small children can interact with older children and adults. There they offer counselling, medical assessments, psychiatric help and job creation in the form of sewing, knitting and beading.
     She said that vandalism had become a major problem and that people in the communities where the parks are situated, no longer want to be held responsible for the upkeep.
     This has led to a new approach where Copessa tries to go into partnership with communities to help them create their own amenities, an approach that ties in well with the Rotary philosophy of sustainable help.

IPP Linda Vink, Hannes Dressler, Helene Bramwell, Adele Dabbs and President Judy Sligcher after the induction

     The meeting took on a festive air with the induction of two new members, Hannes Dressler and Adele Dabbs.
     Hannes, a German national, joins New Dawn from Moscow, where he was CFO of the IT consultant firm SAP. He was a member of the Rotary Club of Moscow for three years before moving to South Africa with his Russian wife Katya and their daughter Liza, to take up a similar position at SAP for Africa.
     Adele is a businesswoman with her own company which finances businesses in the service industry.

Karlien Kruger with two pupils helped by The Link

     The Rotary work never stops and The Link Trust, our signature project, reports that they're gearing up to open two new centres next year on the strength of the global grant that we managed to secure from the Rotary Foundation.
     The remarkable thing about the proposed new centres is that both schools approached The Link to set up centres there, while the process normally works the other way round. It is an indication that word of mouth is working.
     Members who volunteer for The Link (the latest being Karlien Kruger on the numeracy side) report that they get great satisfaction from the work they do.

The poster for Kamers 2019

     Members can also help on the charity front by attending Kamers for their moonlight market tomorrow (Tuesday) evening at St. Johns College in Houghton. This is a champagne preview (from 4 - 10 pm) of the market that runs until 1 September, or Spring Day. Proceeds for the evening go to the Realema Project championed by Carl Chemaly, whereby promising pupils are sponsored to become fully fledged teachers.

The invitation to the Nagy Spring Day

     Don't forget to bring, in no particular order, yourself, partner, family and/or friends, a bite to eat, a bottle to drink and most important, a hat to 9 Roxburghe Ave, Craighall Park on Saturday.
     Hats off to the Nagys for organising this get-together.
     Please don't forget to let Julian know if you're attending, for catering purposes.
     The suburb of Parkview comes alive on Heritage Day, Tuesday 24 September with ParkWords, a local literary festival organised by the Parkview Residents' Association.
     The Mask is one of the sponsors and Helene Bramwell wants to set up a Rotary stall to let people know about the clubs' presence in the area and who knows, try to recruit a few new members.
     This will be invaluable exposure for New Dawn, so do try to help her there in any way you can.
     There is a truly exciting programme with a large number of well-known authors and Helene or Joan Donet will be able to help with the details or forward a programme.
     You can also find the details at www.parkview.org.za.
     More Dates to Diarise: The Golf Day is fast approaching (Friday 8 November) so please remember to bring your contributions to the Barrow of Booze and for prizes to the meeting.
     Mike MacDonald, who is organising the Golf Day with Greg Smith, has challenged each member to supply names o contact details for one four ball so that we can have a record field this year.
     A month later (Wednesday 4 December) is the date we've set aside for the annual Christmas dinner.
     A Thought for the Week: The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing. - Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180 AD)