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Our speaker was Sasha Kober who gave a very thoughtful and researched, personal reflection on “The state of State Education”.
Sasha has been teaching at Princes Hill High for 20 years and is a passionate advocate of “quality free accessible education”.
Despite its problems, Victorian education delivers the best attendance rates and NAPLAN scores and less difference across private/public divide, in the nation.
Major issues:

Our speaker on April 4th was Katie Hall, Member for Footscray in the Legislative Assembly since 2018.
Katie is proud of her Footscray heritage and was encouraged by her family to become involved in public life.
2025 will be a big year for the local community:

The Annual Golf day on April 19th was held at Eynesbury Golf Course this year, due to rising costs at Sanctuary Lakes. We were well supported by Sponsors and Donations from far and wide, as well as from our members too.   We had 56 players join in for a fun day and most I spoke to, enjoyed the day of relaxed golf (always better in a cart if you don’t have to walk!) and the food received favourable comments too. 

We would like to provide an update regarding the Horn of Africa project, which has now successfully completed its latest initiative to send essential goods to the Horn of Africa region.

The Horn of Africa project was commissioned to provide those living in the Horn of Africa region with the resources and materials that would make a positive difference in their lives. In particular, the project aimed to provide medical equipment to local hospitals that were in dire need, and to support locals who would otherwise travel long distances to receive the basic medical care that they needed. The beneficiaries of these donated resources can now boast of much improved facilities and vastly superior patient care.

At the meeting on May 16th, three awards will be made to staff at Mambourin Enterprises. These awards by our club in partnership with Mambourin. will be made in the following categories:-
1.       Outstanding Supported Employee
2.       Outstanding Disability Support Worker
3.       First Year Disability Support Worker
 

At our meeting on 21 March tow speakers Fortuna Berhane of the Australia Tigray Alliance and Dr Hiwet Aregawi a medical practioner who arrived in Australia a year ago. They gave us apowerful insight to the needs in Tigray following the two year civil war. 

Fortuna emphasised the waty in which support can be provided whilst Hiwet spoke of the lack of supplies that resulted in many deaths,

Sharon Read, Acting Director of Western Health Foundation spoke at our March 7 meeting.

During her presentation she highlighted the fundraising efforts last year that financed the purchase of an ultrasound scanner for use in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit which will assist in the management premature babies.

Two containers have recently arrived at port of Berbera, Ethiopia.

A container of medical supplieds arrived early March and has been transported to Jig Jiga, Somali Regional State of Ethiopia.

Last week a second container arrived and included a large donation of ForaMeal from RC Canterbury and also donated clothes.

This year the Rotary Club of Footscray is again supporting and sponsoring 2 very important Awards in our Vocational Services programs- the Mambourin and Evan Phillips awards.
 
Partnering with Mambourin Enterprises, our Club will present 3 Awards, which include $1,000 to each recipient matched dollar for dollar with Mambourin in these categories:-
1.       Outstanding Supported Employee
2.       Outstanding Disability Support Worker
3.       First Year Disability Support Worker
 

We were delighted to be invited by the  to conduct a sausage sizzle at the Western Bulldogs family day and practice match at the Whitten Oval on Friday 23rd February. Two shifts of members sold hundreds of sausages and drinks to the Bulldog fans. Extra supplies were required after the midday rush. This was the most productive sausage sizzle the club has conducted and the profit will be approx $4000.

Speakers at our February 1st meeting were Charlie, Fred and Mikaela, who our club sponsored to the Rotary Sailing Challenge on a four day cruise around Port Phillip Bay on Enterprise in January.
All three are very grateful for the opportunity to have such an amazing experience.

Funds ($2234) supporting the Rotary Youth Sailing Challenge were raised through our Christmas raffle.

Andrew spoke about his grandfather, Arch Hoadley, the first principal of Footscray Technical School and prime mover in the formation of the Rotary Club of Footscray.
Having completed degrees in Mining Engineering and Geology Arch sought adventure and was a member of Mawson’s Antarctic Expedition in 1911-13 as a geologist. On returning from the Antarctic 1914-16 he was a lecturer at the Ballarat School of Mines.
Arch took up his appointment at Footscray in 1916 with 184 day students and 132 evening students. Fees were 15 shillings per term or 5 shillings for evening students and free to those under 14.
His philosophy was to educate young men so that they could:

We are pleased once again to provide an update on the Horn of Africa project. A project commissioned by the Rotary Club of Footscray, as part of Rotary District 9800, and Donations in Kind, to support those living in the Horn of Africa region.

We have achieved another success in fundraising for the Ayder Hospital in the Tigray Regional State of Ethiopia, which is the largest hospital in the region and the only one with surgical facilities. A once state-of-the-art facility providing world class care to people all over the region, the hospital is now in shambles after the recent conflict in the country.

Our outgoing exchange student Anita left late Saturday for Italy.

She was very excited and had said that she will send us photos of her adventures.

Host family "sisters" and members of the Rotary Club of Nuoro gave her a warm welcome.

Ron Hunt and Suzanne Zammit I were part of the large group that farewelled the nine students who recently spent four days sailing around Port Phillip Bay on The Enterprise. The crew and students all loved loved the adventure. Ourclub sponsored theree of the sailors who will be at our meeting on February 1st.

We are honoured that on April 18, Professor Adam Shoemaker, Vice Chancellor of Victoria University will be our speaker. Among other VU issues he will address the developing connection between VU and the new Western Hospital on the corner of Ballarat and Geelong Rds, opposite the Footscray Park Campus. Invite friends to ensure a large attendance for such an important speaker.

January is Vocational Service Month. As Rotarians we have a dual responsibility to represent our occupations within the club and exemplify the ideals of Rotary in their places of work. This article suggests six ways to take action in this avenue of service.

Through the Footscray Rotary Aged Care and Community Services Fund (formerlyWRAC), a grant of $21,000.00 was made to the Yarraville Special Development School (YSDS).
Our guests on December the 7th were Elaine Quinn, Principal, and Davina D'Menzie, vice principal.

A large turn out and a festive atmosphere at our Christmas meeting made for a an enjoyable night. It was great to have an international guest- Stephen McGrath had flown in to spend Christmas with Peter and joined us for the evening.
The tables were decorated appropriately and a Christmas quiz, including many esoteric questions, tested members and guests.

The latest District 9800 Foundation News contains articles concerning the End Polio Now programme. Over the last 35 years Rotary has been an important partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative which has decreased the number of wild polio cases worldwide by 99.9%. At the end of 2022 there were 30 cases reported, 2 in Afghanistan, 20 in Pakistan and 8 in Mozambique. It is estimated that if eradication efforts ceased today, within 10 years polio could paralyse as many as 200,000 children annually.

For the full newsletter click here.

As mentioned in the last Bulletin Jama Farah has begun developing a further project to assist medical care in the Horn of Africa. The initial donation of dialysis machines from the Austin has been supplemented by a large donation of supeceded but perfectly functioning equipment from Western Health. This latest donation includes an ultrasound scanner, three ECG machines, four ventilators, infusion pumps and thirteen reverse osmosis filters for dialysis machines.

The plan is to obtain a container and ship a container of equipment in the first half of 2023.

Our final meeting for the 2022 year naturally had a Christmas flavour. Thanks to Maria and Dianne for decorating the tables with a Christmas flavour.

A trivial pursuit quiz with a Christmas theme prepared by Maria with John Granger as quizmaste There were several winners and thanks go to Phillip Caruso for providing the prizes, bottles of fine wines. Graeme gave a presentation about his recent Nullarbor experience he and Joy had by road and rail.

Kensington Primary School held a fundraising drive to purchase stationery supplies for two small, remote schools.The boxes of pencils, books, rulers etc. are now at DIK waiting for the next shipment to Timor Leste which will be early in 2023. This shipment will support around 80 children at the two schools.

As a partner in the Footscray Art Prize our club will once again sponsor the Young Artists Awards of $500 for both a Primary and Secondary category. The prize is open to younf peoiple in Melbournes West Entries  close on March 20th. the FAP exhibition will be held in July-August.

The nationwide visual art prize has a total of $33000 prize money.

Full details at FAP website.