 Mark Urban introduced Christine Dyer, who is the current International Service Chair for District 5180. He said that Christine has an independent consulting company, a husband and three teenage sons. She is a member of the Roseville Club (joining in 2016) and has traveled to Haiti, Dominican Republic, Honduras and Mexico on Rotary International projects.Christine thanked our Club and Mark for inviting her to speak and said that the topic for today was Global Giving. She said that she had with us (virtually) through the power of the internet, Moika, Vega, and Rena, from Honduras, and are part of the SELF (Sustainability Empowerment Leadership Foundation) who work with underserved communities in Honduras. First Christine showed a short video of what District 5180 is doing in the realm of International Service saying that there are 37 Clubs involved with 6 areas of focus, 8 DISC Team members, 22 Global grants in 17 countries. She outlined some of the various projects such as Peace and Conflict Resolution in Africa and Mexico, arsenic poisoning in Nicaragua, helping small businesses in Bangladesh, Literacy and Basic Education in South Africa and their newest focus on supporting the environment. The projects which are most important are the clean water projects, which impact all others. The District needs to have more Global Grants and encourage the 3-1 bang for your buck effect. It is encouraged that all the Clubs in the District be involved in at least one District wide grant. |
 Christine then produced a PowerPoint slide show about three water projects in Honduras with the aid of Moika, Vegas and Rena,(who are part of SELF) in Honduras to explain the details about the project.The timeline of the Grants is produced in a slide (left) and showed how quickly they were accomplished. The 3rd project was held up by COVID-19, but water is brought from a dam in the mountains which through gravity, brings water to storage tanks in the low lands and then is purified (if need be) and distributed by pumping to various villages.  A detailed description of what was done was provided by Moika, far too detailed to put in this bulletin. Christine said that it is important to have the aid of a NGO, working with local people - that love is expressed not in a language difference but how you speak to one another - by not being condescending, not talking down to them. President Thorman quickly surprised Christine by announcing that, in honor of her presentation, a book will be donated to the Carmichael Library (subsidiary of the Sacramento Public Library. (further slides are below) |
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