REPORT OF ODOWORU COORDINATING COMMITTEE MEETING
April 20, 2009
Present: Steven and Vicky Wallace, Chairs Odoworu Project, Gerry Porter, International Service Chair, DGN Cherie Curzon, DGE Rich Dell’Acqua, PDG Roy Brownie, Matching Grants Chair, PDG Helene Kalfuss, Chair,Odoworu Coordinating Committee. Absent: PDG Jeff Williams, DRFC, Rob Shepherd, DG. Visitor: PDG Mark Howison
The meeting was called to order at approximately 9:30 a.m. and opened with a report from Gerry and Paul Porterupdating the committee as to the activities in the village that they observed during their visit in February.
REPORT FROM GERRY AND PAULA PORTER:
Gerry reported attending two different Rotary Club meetings with clubs that were interested in taking part in helping to support the Village. Gerry and Paula visited Jinja and the Lords Meade Vocational College with John Kirkwood as well as the Kumi Hospital, Totolim School, an organic farm and spent three days in the Village visiting the clinic, school and various other sites. Their report yielded the following recommendations:
a)Spend more than just one half or one full day in Kampala prior to visiting the Village as more time was needed to properly prepare for the Village visit.
b)Follow-up with the two Rotary Clubs interested in getting involved.
c)Use the organic farm to identify which animals and plants would be most appropriate for the Village and try to use them for vocational training needed to teach the Villagers to care properly for everything.
d)The Totalim Primary School appeared quite needy and it was recommended that more be done for this school.
e)Appropriate Gifts be given to the 4 Villagers that gave their land for the benefit of the Village (water projects).
f)Lords Meade Vocational College be used to vocationally train Villagers and that scholarship contributions be encouraged from our clubs to accomplish this.
The Health Center in the Village was found to have new solar panels providing power to run a refrigerator and a new microscope provided by the Japanese. They are providing inoculations once monthly now and the polio vaccine is included.
Matching Grant Status: Roy Brownie, PDG checked via telephone during this meeting on the status of District 9200’s grants to see if the Kampala West club had too many grants still outstanding. According to his report, there were only three outstanding grants and it was not quite determined if that was for the club or the entire District.
Steven agreed to draft the next matching grantsin time for July 1st submission so that we could be in the queue early on. Discussion ensued as to the funding of these projects should TRF be again unable to fund our submissions. It was decided that we would submit applications for everything by July 1st and if TRF was unable to fund them, we would take advantage of their offer to use our DDF to fund the projects completely. Additionally, we would use the cash that is available from the club donations.
The five grants to be drafted for July 1st submission are as follows:
- Water harvesting and vocational training incidental thereto.
- Bio sand filters and vocational training incidental thereto.
- Mosquito Bed Netting.
- Agricultural development with vocational training thereto.
- Sand plats for latrines, solar cookers and solar lighting.
There was a discussion of micro lending which revealed that the Kampala West Club was not interested in getting involved with this. It was strongly recommended that the RCC be the administrator of the program, District 5330 funds be used to start it at no more than $1000.00 and that the RCC Administrators be taught “ownership skills, sharing and learning how to be self sufficient so that they could teach these skills to the users of the lent funds. It was felt that the RCC needed to be more pro-active in determining Village projects and not just giving “hand-outs.”
Financial Status: According to information received from Ken Goddard, District Foundation Chairman, there is a cash balance as of April 14, 2009 of $25,130.40 and with contributions of $3,500.00 in hand, the total cash available is: $28,630.40.
A report from Tom Yuzer on January 12, 2009 as to the restricted DDF available stated that there was a total of $36,683.00 carried forward into 2008-2009.
Vicky Wallace requested an allocation of $5,500.00 to take on their next trip to Uganda June 8-16 for purchases of items for the Village. Motion by Gerry Porter: Allocate $5,500.00 to the Wallaces for use for the Village during their June 8-16th visit. Seconded and Passed.
Gerry reported that he had returned $2,500.00 to Ken Goddard as unused funds he took with him to Uganda in February.
Liaison Officer: There was a discussion of the importance of getting a liaison officer on this committee to handle the contacts, set up and promotion of this project to various non-Rotary organizations, Rotaract, Earlyact, Youthact and Interact Clubs, churches and other houses of worship. It was agreed that these organizations could greatly assist us with their contributions and that they would also be potential Rotarians particularly when they were made aware of this project and what Rotary does. It was generally thought that the Wallaces would not have the time to be able to do this and that another individual(s) were needed to do it effectively. The committee is going to think about whom this person could/should be.There was also some discussion of adding to the number on the committee.
Updating Prioritization and Creating a Time-Line: It was again stressed how important it is to keep the district fully informed of everything we have spent, done and what we still need to do and how much it’s going to cost. It was recommended that monthly information be put in the Governor’s newsletter along with the list of needs and their cost. The importance of updating that list by showing what had already been purchased/done was stressed as well so that the clubs were aware of the disposition of their contributions. Transparency is necessary in order to insure continued club participation.
Mark Howison requested that the air fare to Uganda for Peace and Conflict Resolution Scholar, Vanessa Contopolous be paid for out of the collected funds on account with Ken Goddard. Initially, there was general agreement until DGN Cherie Curzon pointed out that the clubs had not donated this money for that purpose and that it might be viewed upon negatively as an inappropriate use of their funds. The consensus was reversed to Cherie’s point of view and it was thought that general appeals for donations would produce the needed funds.
The next meeting is to be calendared by the next Chair of this Committee.
Adjournment occurred at 11:45 a.m.
Submitted by PDG Helene A. Kalfuss, Ph.D.,
Chair, Odoworu Coordinating Committee