Rotary District 7030: October Newsletter by Rotchelle Dionne

contents Economic and Community Development

Rotary Numbers

Focus on Dyslexia

Global Grant Project – Water & Sanitation Focus

Polio Day

Call for Articles on Club Projects

RYLA “Save the Date” Announcement

RYLA 2015

DG Official Visits

The RI Theme for October Economic & Community Development Economic Development Projects Nearly 1.4 billion employed people live on less than $1.25 a day. Rotary executes service projects that enhance economic and community development and develop opportunities for decent and productive work for young and old. Rotarians around the world also help strengthen local entrepreneurs and community leaders, particularly women, in impoverished communities. A way out of poverty is to create sustainable, measurable, and long-term economic improvements in communities and livelihoods by: • Building the capacity of entrepreneurs, community leaders, local organizations, and community networks to support economic development in impoverished communities • Developing opportunities for productive work • Reducing poverty in underserved communities • Supporting studies for career-minded professionals related to economic and community development Rotary supports investments in people to create measurable and enduring economic improvement in their lives and communities. What is your club’s Economic and Community Development focus and have you considered TRF opportunities? Parameters for Eligibility TRF considers activities targeting the following to be within the scope of the economic and community development area of focus: 1. Access to financial services for the poor, which may include but are not limited to microcredit, savings, or insurance; 2. Training related to economic and community development including but not limited to entrepreneurship, community leadership, vocational, and financial literacy;

3. Small business/cooperative/social enterprise development and income-generating activities for the poor, including but not limited to the organization of village-wide businesses that provide employment; 4. Agricultural development for subsistence and small farmers, including but not limited to the facilitation of access to markets; 5. Community-led and coordinated adopt-a-village or comprehensive community development activities; 6. Vocational training teams supporting the above activities; and 7. Scholarships for graduate-level study in programs related to grass-roots economic development and programs specifically designated in community development

Nearly 1.4 billion employed people live on less than $1.25 a day.

Rotary Numbers Membership growth Our District, as other Rotary districts, is collectively focused on the growth of membership as key to our ability to continue to effectively serve our communities. In Q1 of this Rotary year, clubs in District added 41 members to their membership rolls, but also lost 25 members. The District’s net growth July 1 – Sep 2, 2015, has been 16. Congratulations to the following clubs experiencing net growth for the first quarter: Club ID

Club Name

Member Count @ July 1st

Member Count @ Sept. 2nd

Net Change from July 1st

6797

Antigua

6798

Barbados

23315

Barbados South

6801

Cayenne

6812

Fort-de-France Ouest

6810

Georgetown

29282

Gros Islet

29419

Maraval

6815

Montserrat

6819

Paramaribo

6807

Pointe-à-Pitre

6825

San Fernando

25256

San Juan

75504

Schoelcher

66016

Southwest-Tobago

6816

St. Lucia

31040

St. Vincent South

As we continue to focus on improving the membership experience and attracting new members it is interesting to note that more than 10,000 Rotary members around the world who completed RI’s 2014 Strategic Plan survey identified the top issues facing Rotary as membership recruitment and retention, membership diversity, and club innovation and flexibility. Approximately 20 percent of respondents asked for more networking opportunities, more member involvement in planning club activities, and fresh ideas for involving new members.

Rotary Foundation Contributions to The Rotary Foundation make it possible for clubs to transform lives worldwide. Clubs in the District have collectively set the District Annual Fund goal as US$155, 820. To date we have achieved 14% of our target.

US$100 Per Capita District Benchmark for 1,981 Members

$198,100.00

District Annual Fund Goal (sum of all club goals):

$155,820.00

Total of Annual Fund Giving for Period

$22,236.39

Dyslexia Basics Gifted and Dyslexic: Identifying the Twice Exceptional Student As individuals, each of us has a unique combination of strengths and weaknesses. But sometimes we are exceptionally strong or weak in certain areas. In the school setting, students with exceptional strengths and weaknesses may have different instructional needs than other students. Twice exceptional or 2e is a term used to describe students who are both intellectually gifted and learning disabled, which includes students with dyslexia.

Raising awareness is an important first step toward helping these students. This fact sheet provides information on identifying 2e students, providing them with effective instruction, and raising questions for future research.

• • •

Identified gifted students who have a learning disability Students with a learning disability whose giftedness has not been identified Unidentified students whose gifts and disabilities may be masked by average school achievement

It is commonly believed that many 2e students are misclassified, neglected, or receive inadequate intervention. Sometimes it can be a greater struggle to show that a student is eligible for services for treating dyslexia than for giftedness; at other times, proving eligibility for services for the giftedness is the challenge. For gifted students who also have dyslexia, it is important to advocate with equal energy for both the disability and the ability.

Specific causes of 2e are not known. Research, however, suggests three possibilities: •

How common is 2e? The National Association for Gifted Children recognizes three types of students who could be identified as 2e:

What causes 2e?

Studies commonly suggest that 2-5% of school-age children are 2e, with some reports being much higher. It is unclear if the rates of 2e differ among girls and boys. Boys are more often identified with the disability part of the 2e equation and therefore may more often be identified as 2e. Some research has also shown that dyslexia is more common among gifted people in spatially oriented occupations, such as art, math, architecture, and physics. While each of these studies may have specific methodological strengths and weaknesses, in general there is some evidence that higher incidences of reading and/or language deficits are seen in such occupations or expertise.

•

In some cases, the co-occurrence of giftedness and dyslexia is due to chance or naturally occurring variations in human neurology Some people with dyslexia develop gifts outside of the reading domain through experience or practice In the course of early neurodevelopment, the brain is wired so that learning to read is difficult but learning in other domains is not; that is, in some cases, there may be a causal link between being at risk for dyslexia and giftedness

Exactly how and to what degree these three etiologies exist in the 2e dyslexia population remains to be discovered.

Information extracted from The International Dyslexia Association website.

However, evidence is not conclusive that having dyslexia significantly increases the likelihood of being gifted.

Global Grant Project Water & Sanitation Focus During the Rotary year 2013 -2014, District 7030 participated in a global grant aimed at a clean water project in the Tamale area of the Northern Region of Ghana. We impacted 28,890 lives with this one project. About this project..

What were project objectives? The goal was to provide communities with thirteen new boreholes, fifteen repaired boreholes, one hundred and thirty one toilets new microflush toilets and hand washing at sinks. The project designers wanted to buy six computers in a lab for the Bagabaga Junior High School in Tamale and wanted to provide one hundred dual desks for the Sagadugu Elementary School. The goal was to transform the lives of 14,250 people who would benefit.

What was actually accomplished? Most of the project goals were exceeded. Twelve boreholes were completed along with one hand dug well. Thirty-two boreholes instead of fifteen were repaired. Seventy-nine tablets instead of six desktop computers were bought for four schools instead of just one school. One hundred and sixteen microflush toilets instead of one hundred and thirty one toilets were completed.

What are the expected long-term community impacts of the project? Many of the communities with new or repaired boreholes have been trained how to sustain the new water projects for a very long time. We’ve empowered the communities to help themselves.

The computer labs will provide educational opportunities beyond what school children in Ghana ever dreamed about in the past. The Microflush toilet is perhaps the greatest change in Ghana. The toilet provides an economical way to address sanitation needs without producing sewage.

How did Rotarians manage and oversee the project? International Rotarians led by Walter Hughes, Jr. travelled three times during the life of this project to plan and evaluate the project in February 2014, January 2015 and September 2015. The Tamale Rotarians negotiated contracts with the contractors and communicated with the international Rotarians. This was the first major project for the Tamale Rotary Club in a long time so there were some learning curves how to manage global grants. Here are some accounts from Walter Hughes, Jr: “We spent time talking to chiefs on Sunday after we worshipped at one of our new churches in Takora Yilli. We went to a village named Nabari that was the site of our first three hand dug wells in Ghana in 2007. One of the wells had collapsed walls. Another well had a problem with a handle. I urged the new chief of Nabari to raise funds to repair the hand dug wells. The government had tried to drill three new deep boreholes, but all three boreholes were dry. I’m hoping

that we can used some funds from Redwood United Methodist Church to dig a hand dug well and repair one or two of the hand dug wells in Nabari if the chief raises matching funds. It is tough to be meeting the sons of chiefs and brothers of chiefs who are now chief because the chief that I knew has passed away. The new chief in our villages usually know about me, but I miss some of my friends who have left their villages. Today, Monday, September 7th had a lot of ups and downs. The most rewarding moments were when the Bolgtanga Goodwill Rotarians who traveled with our team told us what they had learned by seeing the projects in the Upper East Region with us. It was a good day for them. It was also good to see a hand dug well in Yorogo Sorogobisi that was PERFECT. Every detail of the workmanship was exactly as we want to see it to increase the life of the well. It is nice to see that kind of attention to detail. We went to the Bolgatanga Polytechnic Institute where we drilled a new high yielding borehole in 2014. We found out in January from a test by Tim Wilborne that the water from our new high yield borehole was unsafe to drink. I’ve been waiting to get word that the water is safe to drink for 1.5 years now. I met with the assistant rector at the university. I told him that I was unhappy. I told him that we moved $202,000 worth of projects from the Upper East Region to the Brong Ahafo Region because of his university and a few other problems with his well. I told him that the future of water in his region

These smiles were produced in Diare, Ghana by Rotary funding a new borehole where the children can get clean water to drink.

was dependent upon securing the current mechanized water pump and providing safe water to the children. I climbed on top of one water tank to place chlorine tablets into the black water tank that the contractor brought. We had to get permission from the university to shock the water tanks. I lifted the president elect of the Bolgatanga Goodwill Rotary Club to climb on top of the second water tank. Getting clean water is a team effort. ………………………………………. We are driving from Tamale in the north to Techiman in the central part of the country of Ghana. The team had the bags packed and ready to go by 7:15 a.m. We ate breakfast. We paid the bill at Gilbert Guesthouse with some haggling over room rates. The drive south was good. I rode in the truck with Michael Anyekase. I actually slept some on the journey south. We stopped to hike down to Kintampo Falls. It are beautiful. The waterfalls are where the African bush meets the rain forest. We made it to Techiman around 2 p.m. The Techiman Rotarians were waiting for us at the Encom Hotel to show us around to our projects. In Techiman, our main work is clean water, sanitation, education & literacy as well as medical care. We went to the Freeman Methodist School in Akrofrom. The school has a new preschool built by the district government. Rotary provided ten microflush toilets for the school. Redwood

UMC provided the new mechanized borehole from the 2013 Christmas offering. The funds were given through the Rotary Foundation to increase the value of the offering. The school is cooperating with the community to extend the water system to the families around the school. The team saw the old toilets that the school children used. They were appalled at the smell, the flies, trash and the board that children would stand on to use the bathroom. I wish anyone who still wants to fund latrines could compare the microflush toilet to those latrines. We just can’t attach the odor in this email.

first visit to these two communities to today is overwhelming in a good way. A community believes and now knows that they can improve the lives of their children. The critical work didn’t happen in America. It happened in their community and they did it.”

We went to the communities of Aworowa and Akrofrom. Both communities had small town water systems that were not working for ten years. I visited these communities with Past-President Joseph Yeboah several years ago. We told them that Rotary couldn’t help them. They had to open a bank account and start making deposits into the account before we would consider adding those communities into the project scope of a Rotary Foundation humanitarian grant. Three months later, both communities sent us the bank statement showing regular deposits. Now, the communities have plenty of money in the bank to extend the water system to other parts of the community. The water & sanitation chairperson is a woman. She actively manages the newly repaired small town water system. The contrast from my

savethedate

October 23 ROTARY’S

World Polio Day event Celebrate our remarkable progress toward a polio-free world with the Rotary World Polio Day event, streamed live from New York City on October 23. Co-hosted by UNICEF, the event will highlight recent milestones: In July, Nigeria marked one year without a case of polio caused by the wild poliovirus, and in August, the entire African continent celebrated one year without a case. Jeffrey Kluger, health and science editor at Time magazine, will serve as moderator, joining other health experts, including UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake and polio ambassadors. The event, which drew 23,000 viewers in 24 countries last year, will be available on social media and will be rebroadcast immediately on endpolio. org. Clubs can host their own activities to help raise awareness and funding for our final push to eradicate polio worldwide. World Polio Day, which officially is observed on October 24, was established by Rotary International more than 10 years ago. The timing in late October is in honor of the birthday of Dr. Jonas Salk, who led the team that developed the first polio vaccine. Here are ideas for promoting and marking World Polio Day: • Promote the streaming event on social media • Host a viewing party in your community. • Share your club’s celebration on social media, using #endpolio. • Show a recording of the streamed event at your next club meeting, along with an update on Africa’s progress toward polio eradication

Call For Project Articles

We want to hear from you â&#x20AC;Ś. As an international organisation part of Rotaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s success comes from the ability of Clubs to join together to strengthen efforts and share ideas. We are anxious to share what clubs are doing in our District. Send us articles on your club projects.

Have you made note of Rotary Internationalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s updated monthly themes? MONTH

THEME

AUGUST

Membership and New Club Development Month

SEPTEMBER

Basic Education and Literacy Month

OCTOBER

Economic and Community Development Month

NOVEMBER

Rotary Foundation Month

DECEMBER

Disease Prevention and Treatment Month

JANUARY

Vocational Service Month

FEBRUARY

Peace and Conflict Prevention/Resolution Month

MARCH

Water and Sanitation Month

APRIL

Maternal and Child Health Month

MAY

Youth Services Month

JUNE

Rotary Fellowships Month

RYLA 2015 The Rotary Clubs in Grenada and the Rotaract Club of Grenada will be hosting the District’s Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) 2015-2016 delegates in the Isle of Spice under the theme ‘Positioning Tomorrow’s Leaders Today’ from 5th – 7th November 2015. RYLA is an intensive training programme that brings together youth and young adults, ages 14-30, to further develop character and leadership skills and to learn about Rotary. Participants are nominated by local Rotary clubs, which cover all their expenses. For these young adults, RYLA offers the opportunity to build self confidence, leadership and communication skills; gain exposure to a variety of issues and people; to debate matters relating to professional responsibility and human relations; learn about businesses or institutions; acquire valuable information and career skills; interact with active community leaders and Rotarians, while having fun and making friends. The objectives of RYLA are the same each year among all Districts. They demonstrate Rotary’s respect and concern for youth; they encourage and assist young people in responsible and effective voluntary youth leadership, by providing them with a valuable training experience; they foster continued and stronger leadership of youth by youth and publicly recognize the many young people who are rendering service to their communities as youth leaders. As Rotarians, RYLA gives us the opportunity to mentor promising, young leaders who are serving their communities and beyond and it also allows us to bridge the gap between generations. Rotarians serve as resource for participants on the path to becoming professional and community leaders.

In turn, RYLA can bring energy to a Rotary District, inspire ideas for service, increase support of community service projects and develop future Rotarians. From 5th – 7th November 2015, participants will be encapsulated into a three (3) day experience that will change their lives forever. On the beautiful Isle of Spice, participants will be engaging in interactive forum to discuss and debate the issues affecting their generation, share their experiences, be part of team work and meet new friends from across District 7030, ranging from St. Kitts to Suriname and possibly friends from other Districts. This conference will also allow the participants to share aspects of their culture and learn about the culture from the various islands and countries. The RYLA Committee is soliciting the support of each Rotary club within District 7030. We are asking each Club to sponsor at least three participants. The registration cost of USD750.00 (up to 15th October, 2015) for each participant covers: 4 nightshotel accommodation with breakfast (venue - Grenadian by Rex Resort); ground transportation, conference material; tea breaks, lunch and dinner. Enquiries and/or follow-up can be made to RYLA District 7030 Co-ordinator Alana Wilson. P. O. Box 3516, St. George’s, Grenada, W.I. Tele: +473-4190153; email: rylagrenada2015@gmail.com. RYLA was created because Rotarians strongly believe in the potential of youth

and the importance of developing and investing in youth leadership programmes. The recognition of young people’s potential plays a central role in improving a Rotary club’s image in the community and fostering relationships between young people and adults. In echoing our Rotary theme for this year, ‘Be a gift to the world’, we are encouraging each Club within the District to continue to support the work of Rotary and that of RYLA. We are counting on you to make this year’s RYLA Conference a Success. The Rotary Clubs in Grenada and the Rotaract Club of Grenada are looking forward to hosting your delegates in the Isle of Spice in November, as we endeavor to ‘Position Tomorrow’s Leaders Today.’

DG Official Visits

OCTOBER 2015 1st - 4th – Martinique 4th - 10th – French Guiana 18th – 25th – ZONE

NOVEMBER 2015 3rd - 4th & 8th – Grenada 5th - 7th – RYLA 15th – 21st – Suriname 30th – Trinidad East

DECEMBER 2015 1st - 4th – Trinidad East 7th - 11th – Guadeloupe 14th - 16th – St. Lucia

District 7030