Welcome to Meeting No. 161 of the Rotary eClub of Latitude 38 

President’s Message

The great news of the week is that the Rotary Club of Batemans Bay has agreed to donate $1000 towards our Vietnam Health Card for Needy People project. Each year every person in Vietnam must purchase a health insurance card. The cards cost  approximately $AUD43  and ensures free medical treatment. For the Vietnamese poor, the government will subsidise the card for between 70% to 90% depending on where they are located. This means that the Vietnamese living in poverty only need to pay up to $AUD13 per person but a large family finds it difficult to cover that amount for each of its members.

An organisation called Sponsoring Association for Poor Patients (SAPP) with whom our Vietnam-based member, Pete, is associated has as one of its aims to provide 2000 health cards for each of their five targeted provinces. Some of these provinces are a little remote but one of them is Ben Tre which is within travelling distance from Ho Chi Minh City where Pete lives. The subsidy rate for Ben Tre is 30% so SAPP would be covering approx $AUD13 per card so poverty stricken Vietnamese in that provinces can have free access to medical treatment and medication. This is the province that we will be supporting.

Our club  would like to raise $AUD3000 which would provide approximately 225 health cards towards this goal at $AUD13 each. As I have mentioned we already have $1000 in hand through the generosity of the Rotary Club of Batemans Bay NSW.  This is our first project in Vietnam and it will enable the club to make valuable contacts with the local authority in Ben Tre which in turn will help with other projects. 

We have set up a GoFundMe page to raise a further $2000 for the project. The link is www.gofundme.com Please encourage your family and friends to contribute.

 

This week's meeting material

Update on a previous meeting

Just a quick update on the Rotary Club of Gisborne which we featured in meeting 157. Members have completed 54 care packs so far ( I think their target was 50  by the end of this month ). A fantastic effort and what a great idea. Support RC Gisborne and visit their Facebook page.

 

FareShare - www.fareshare.net.au

FareShare rescues food that would otherwise go to waste and cooks it into free nutritious meals for people in need. Around  four million Australians experience food insecurity while as much as $20 billion worth of food is wasted.
FareShare tackles the tragedy head on by rescuing surplus, quality food from supermarkets, wholesalers, farmers and other businesses and cooking it into nutritious meals.
In Melbourne, with the help of 900 regular volunteers, FareShare cooks more than 5,000 free meals a day for charities such as soup vans, homeless shelters, women’s refuges and community food banks. Have any of our members been involved in Fareshare or Foodbank?

 

 

November is Rotary Foundation Month

5-11 November - World Interact Week

10 November - Rotary Day at the United Nations

 

This officially ends meeting No.161. Let me know on our Facebook group what you thought of the meeting material. Serious, leave a comment. It helps to get some feedback on the meeting and also to hear your thoughts and ideas. For club members go to the closed group here Closed Group Facebook page and for non members please leave a comment on our Public Facebook page, like, and share.

 

If you have an interesting topic, or project to share please contact Pete at pete@showell.com.au

Thank you for joining us, we appreciate your feedback, hope you will return soon and invite a guest.

Pete Showell

Webmaster

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