Welcome to Meeting No. 172 of the Rotary eClub of Latitude 38 

President's message

I am pleased that Grant Ellers has agreed to take on the job of President in 2019-20. He will lead us well and I am sure we will all support him.

We have a number of project proposals in the pipeline. This is in addition to our flagship projects in Cambodia and Vietnam (Health Card). These include:

  • Public Forum on Awareness of Abuse of Vulnerable Members of the Community. 
  • Birth Tree Project in Cardinia Shire. 
  • Supporting the Rotary Cricket Program in Sierra Leone.

The Board has given in principle support to the first project and the other two are being presented to the Board in the near future.

We are also inducting a new member on Monday 11 February 2019 and I hope you can all attend. We have just received a further application and this is going through the system.

I look forward to seeing and hearing you online on Monday.

Regards

Brian Norris

President

 

This week's meeting material

Big shout out to the Rotary Clubs of Eaglehawk and Castlemaine in Victoria for their strong support for the Rotary Club of Cobar and their ongoing drought relief project to help local farmers survive the devastating drought.

Assistance included Essential Grocery Item Packs, bales of hay and a mobile desalinisation plant on a trailer that can be shared around Cobar. Amazing clubs helping amazing clubs!

 

Presentation in Ben Tre Vietnam for Health Insurance Cards for the needy

On Monday 21Jan19 Pete S, on behalf of Rotary eClub Latitude 38, attended the presentation of the Health Insurance Cards at the Local Authorities office in Ben Tre, Vietnam. Pete along with another donor from Ho Chi Minh City attended including Ms Chen and Mr Ranh from SAPP ( Sponsoring Association for Poor Patients ) in Ho Chi Minh City.  Mr Ranh is the SAPP Vice President in Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnamese Local Authorities were very appreciative of our efforts and willingness to help the Vietnamese who cannot effort to purchase their own health cards.

Don't forget that you can still donate to this project which is ongoing. Please visit our GoFundMe page to support this very worthwhile project. Share via Facebook to help spread the word and make our first Vietnam project a great success.

Please visit the Vietnamese Health Card project page for more photos from the presentation.

 

Latitude38 Club Project - Vietnam Health Cards for the Needy

Every year each person in Vietnam must purchase a health insurance card to obtain free medical treatment and medication.  The cost of this card is VND 700,000 each (about $43 Australian dollars).  For Vietnamese who are very poor, the Vietnamese Government will subsidise between 70-90% of the cost of a health card for them, meaning those people only need to pay about $13 Australian dollars instead.  

This doesn’t sound much, but for poverty stricken families in remote and rural areas, the issue is how will they find the money to pay for a card for each family member. To afford the card what will families have to do without? 

SAPP (Sponsoring Association for Poor Patients) is an organisation in southern Vietnam who (amongst other welfare programs) generously aims to provide 2000 health cards each year to poor people in five targeted provinces.  This will enable families to not have to worry about how they will cope with illness or disease, and they can confidently send children to school, help the elderly contribute in the community and allow families to work towards improving their situation.

Rotary Club of Latitude38 is working with SAPP to fund some cards, but they need your help too.  The more you donate, the more cards can be distributed and this helps more children be the best they can be. That’s something we should all be doing……

Visit our clubs Go Fund Me page to support our first project in Vietnam.

 

This officially ends meeting No.172. 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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