A Special Thank You All The Way From South Africa
Rotarian Rob Campbell from the Rotary Club of Hillcrest in District 9370 in Durban ,South Africa conveys a message of gratitude to District 7080 and Canadian Districts. Read message below:
I headed our Districts Grant Committee for a number of years and was always amazed by the amazing support that we received from District 7080 and other Canadian Districts. This is thus to convey a most sincere BIG thank you. To thus have you visit and call on our clubs here is only further testimony to the debt of gratitude that we owe you. Our District shared Matching Grants and Global Grants with D7080 which and my own Rotary Club of Hillcrest, was amongst the beneficiaries.
RC Winnipeg's support has enabled us to complete a number of projects - not least our annual "Empowering Young People" project .Thanks to RC Winnipeg we have also completed a number of Global Grants - our newest kicked off this week, to train 60 young women in micro agriculture to propagate seedlings for sale within their communities.
Strini Reddy of RC Winnipeg kindly introduced us to Luke Vostermans of RC Gibsons (Luke also heads the Roll a Hippo Foundation, in Canada) and together with RC Winnipeg, we jointly established "The 1000 Survival Gardens Project " - initially, as a Covid response. Through this initiative, we provide communities and families with the necessary equipment and seeds, to kickstart community and homestead gardens to grow their own vegetables / fruit for own consumption and to sell for an income. We are about to deliver our 1000th Survival Garden Kit shortly and our Southern Africa Rotary Africa magazine just published an amazing article on this project - link for this is below.
Because the project has been widespread, to assist communities within our District and beyond, we could, until now, not apply for a Global Grant, for this initiative. We however decided to focus on specific needy communities or areas, suitable for Global Grant applications - the first will most likely be in our local Valley of 1000 Hills area.
We are also in the process of evaluating the replacement of asbestos guttering and water piping by upgrading the water supply and sanitation facilities at Fulton School for the Deaf which is in our area and may consider this too, for a Global Grant.
We will welcome and be grateful if we can approach you for support from your District as these come to fruition.
Submitted by Lesley Barmania
District Foundation Chair