Paul Harris Recognition
Jama Farah was recently honoured with one of Rotary International’s highest awards in recognition of service, when his precvious Paul Harris Award was upgraded to Paul Harris Recognition with Sapphire.
In presenting the award President Maria commented as follows:
One might say that in recent times, opportunities for service of any kind have been limited. Nevertheless, it has been possible even if some unorthodox methods have been adopted. Service to the community starts within the club and spreads in ever widening circles to the local, national and international communities. All are worthy of effort and recognition for that.
Jama Farah joined our club in 2008 which seems a long time ago now. He has been acutely aware of the needs of the peoples of East Africa in general and of the areas of eastern Ethiopia and Somaliland in particular. He also discovered the Aladdin’s Cave of treasures in the DIK shed in Somerville Road. The storing of so much goods and equipment is almost embarrassing but that is also the genius of Rotary’s DIK – to make it available.
IN the innocent pre-pandemic days of 2014 Jama was able to fill a whole container with hospital beds, paint, clothing and goodness knows what, and ship it off to the port of Berbera then on to Hargeysa where the contents were met with delight and appreciation. For that mighty effort and creating water storage reservoirs, Jama was awarded a PHF.
Move forward to 2020 and the COVID pandemic had ruined international trade, pushed the cost of shipping and containers sky-high and caused a near paralysis of port operations. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Enter crowd-funding. The old cost of about $3000 per container was now $7000 meaning $21000 for three. Against the odds Jama raised that amount, shipped the containers and delivered them to complete rapture. There were even kidney dialysis machines, and powered wheelchairs making life changing improvements to people’s lives.