Welcome to Meeting No. 178 of the Rotary eClub of Latitude 38 

President's Report

March is Water and Sanitation Month in Rotary. Clean water, sanitation, and hygiene education are basic necessities for a healthy environment and a productive life.When people have access to clean water and sanitation, waterborne diseases decrease, children stay healthier and attend school more regularly, and parents spend less time carrying water and more time helping their families. I encourage you to go to www.rotary.org to learn more and to watch this short video: https://vimeo.com/303620911
 
I look forward to seeing you on screen on Monday night next.
 
Brian Norris
President

 

This week's meeting material

Updates

For our new members here are some links to organisations that eClub Latitude 38 or our members have been involved with over the last few years. 

 

Green Gecko - Siem Reap, Cambodia

The Green Gecko Project is an established grassroots NGO recognised for bringing effective and sustainable positive change to the communities we work with. Through our holistic approach and long-term programs, we have empowered 32 families who previously lived and worked on the streets, to care for their children in a safe and nurturing environment. Green Gecko Project and Rehash Trash

 

Opportunities of Development thru Art - Siem Reap, Cambodia

ODA provides Free English education to keen outlying village youngsters.  Fluent English is the key to employment in and around the booming tourism industry in Siem Reap, and ODA’s Free English schools directly address the need of improving students future employment opportunities. ODA Siem Reap

 

Janne's Journal

Has everyone read through the latest issue? Great stories but one that I thought stood out was ROMAC update about the districts sponsored child Emilia. 

 

Existing Latitude38 Club Project - Vietnam Health Cards for the Needy

In January 2019 the eClub Latitude 38 presented 142 health cards to needy Vietnamese residents in Ben Tre Province Southern Vietnam. I hope to be able to make this an ongoing project and be able to present even more health cards in January 2020 

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.178. 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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