To "attend" the meeting, scroll down the screen, review all the information from top to bottom, view all the videos, read all the information, and enjoy your time here with us at our Rotary meeting.
Dear Fellow Rotarians, visitors and guests!
WELCOME TO OUR E-CLUB!
Thank you for stopping by our club meeting! We hope you will enjoy your visit.
Our E-Club banner is shown at left! Please send us a virtual copy of your club banner and we will send you a copy of our new club banner in exchange. We will also display your club banner proudly on our meeting website.
We are now officially a fully-fledged chartered Rotary Club in District 7020. We celebrated our Charter Gala with the meeting posted the week of January 24. Our charter date is August 12, 2013. We hope you will find the content of our meeting enlightening and will give us the benefit of your opinion on the content.
We are celebrating our Rotary District Conference - April 29 through May 4. Our club celebrates our 2014 Butterfly Storybook!
Visiting Rotarians. Click this link to Apply for a Make-up. We will send you and your club secretary a make-up confirmation.
Active Members. Click for Attendance Record.
Happy Hour Hangout. Happy Hour Hangout. Our Happy Hour Hangout on a Saturday morning is early enough so that you can join before your day gets away from you.
We meet for a live chat and sometimes business discussion. If you are interested in dropping by, please click the link below. Morning coffee is on the house! (Your house, that is...) Hope to see you there!
Please note: Now, attending our HHH will earn you a make-up!
The link to the Happy Hour Hangout for Saturday is at the bottom of this meeting.
Interested in joining us? Click the link Membership Application and Information.
Our President, Kitty, would now like to welcome you to this week's meeting. Please listen in...
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ROTARY E-CLUB OF THE CARIBBEAN, 7020
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ABCs OF ROTARY (Cliff Dochterman)
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| Cliff Dochterman RI President, 1992-93 |
From time to time, Rotarians may read the promotional literature announcing a regional conference to be held some place in the world. Such a conference is quite similar to the annual Rotary International convention, but generally smaller in attendance and serving Rotarians and guests in a region which is at a considerable distance from the site of the international convention.
The purpose of a regional conference is to develop and promote acquaintance, friendship and understanding among the attendees, as well as to provide a forum to discuss and exchange ideas about Rotary and international affairs related to the geographic areas inovled.
Regional conferences usually attrace two or three thousands individuals and because they are considred special events in the Rotary calendar, are not held on any regular schedule. The conferences are arranged periodically, according to the interest of the Rotary leaders in specific regions. Many of the operational tasks of the conferences are handled by the RI Secretariat.
Although there is no special effort to promote attendance by Rotarians outside of the region involved, members from all parts of the world are always welcome to attend. Attending a conference in another region is an enjoyable, rewarding and fascinating experience. These conferences provide another facet to the international fellowship of Rotary.
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ROTARY AWARENESS - Reminder
As Rotarians, we are welcomed at any Rotary Club throughout the world.
In the next few months, let's all try to attend a minimum of 3 meetings at clubs outside of our own E-Club in the next few months.
Please make an effort to see how other clubs operate! Expand your Rotary family!
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INTER-COUNTRY COMMITTEES
In 1931, Rotarians in France and Germany organized the "petit comite," a small group with the goal of fostering better relations between the people of these two neighboring nations. Since that time, Rotarians throughout Europe have led the way in creating Inter-country Committees to encourage contacts between Rotarians and Rotary clubs across national boundaries.
Inter-country Committees have now been established in many parts of the world to promote friendship as well as to cooperate in sponsoring World Community Service projects, student exchanges and other activities to improve understanding among nations. Frequently, the Inter-country Committees sponsor visits of Rotarians and their families across national borders and arrange intercity meetings and conferences.
In some instances, Inter-country Committees are created between countries separated by great distances in an effort to encourage goodwill and friendship with matched or partner areas of the world. The Inter-country Committees coordinate their efforts with the district governors of their countries and always servce in an advisory capacity to districts and clubs.
Inter-country Committees provide an additional means for rotary clubs and Rotarians to fulfill the responsibilities of the Fourth Avenue of Service - international understanding, goodwill and peace in the world.
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- Peace and Conflict Resolution
- Disease Prevention and Treatment
- Water and SanitationIf yo
- Maternal and Child Health
- Basic Education and Literacy
- Economic and Community Development
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CELEBRATING ROTARY IN GRAND CAYMAN
Keturah and Kitty meet in Grand Cayman for the first time!
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ROTARY ANTHEM
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CHILD TRAFFICKING IN GHANA
By Raggie Johansen
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/child-trafficking-in-ghana.html
Human trafficking is an international problem affecting millions of people and many countries around the world. In Ghana, West Africa, the internal trafficking of children is one of the biggest challenges.
Created by the construction of the Akosombo dam in the early 1960s, Lake Volta is one of the world's largest artificial lakes. A number of fishermen who have depended on the bounties of the lake for many years report that fish stocks are decreasing, making it difficult to survive off fishing alone. Other work is scarce in a country where unemployment is widespread and approximately 40 per cent of the population live below the poverty line.
The depletion of stocks is one of the key reasons why children are needed as workers in the fishing industry. In addition to being cheap labour, their small, nimble fingers are useful in releasing the fish from the ever smaller nets.
"The Government should ban the use of nets with tiny holes," says Jack Dawson, Executive Director of APPLE, a local NGO that works in several fishing villages. "Doing so would allow fish stocks to improve and discourage the use of kids because there would be no need for such small hands."
Another task that trafficked children frequently perform is diving to disentangle the fish nets from the numerous tree stumps that are scattered throughout the lake. As nets are often dragged along the bottom of the lake, they tend to get stuck. Diving is a dangerous job that can have dire consequences for the children, from catching water-based diseases such as bilharzia and guinea worm to death from drowning.
On mission to Ghana, UNODC Goodwill Ambassador Julia Ormond, who focuses on human trafficking, visited a number of villages. Accompanied by a local team, Ormond spoke to child traffickers, trafficking victims and their parents, and people working to combat this crime.
When visiting the fishing villages, Ormond observed several boats and their crews. She recalls that spotting victims of trafficking was relatively easy as their demeanour differed from that of children still living with their parents. Whereas kids tend to be playful and seek the attention of visitors, particularly those who have cameras, trafficked children are generally more reserved.
"There was this young boy who came off the lake," she says, "he simply froze when he saw us! Carrying his paddles, his jeans falling off him; he wanted the attention of the camera, and gave a little smile, but it was so diffident, so broken."
The driving forces behind child trafficking extend beyond fish scarcity. Deep-rooted traditions can also help explain the prevalence of this crime. For example, it is common in Ghana for children to participate in apprentice work with a relative or family friend. Many kids, and their parents, believe that going away to work is a route to a better life.
"Child trafficking is actually a distortion of the old cultural practice of placement with relatives or townspeople," says Joe Rispoli, Head of the Counter-Trafficking Department of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Ghana. "And many parents don't know the value of education; for them, it's more immediately valuable for their children to learn how to fish."
Child labour and even trafficking is deeply ingrained in the fishing industry in Ghana. Through conversations with child traffickers, it becomes clear that many of them simply do not realize that it is wrong for children to be away from their parents, not attending school and performing hard physical work for long hours.
For example, Benjamin Tornye, a fisherman for 15 years, used to visit parents and ask them if their children could help him with his work. As he said, "children are good fishers." He would teach them how to use the boat, swim and dive, and he believed he was doing the right thing.
However, a few years ago, an IOM intervention made Tornye and other traffickers realize that children should not be made to work like adults. "We have understood that it is wrong, and that kids should be with their parents and in school," Tornye says. Now, he is working as a community coordinator for APPLE, taking great pride in his work to stop child trafficking in Ghana.
Emmanuel Agyapong also works with APPLE, educating both traffickers and parents about the perils of child trafficking. He says that reducing its incidence is a process that requires patience.
"We need to build trust, to win the parents' hearts and souls," he says. "If they open up to us, we can make them understand. Therefore, we don't use legal arguments, as that frightens them."
The legal framework on trafficking in Ghana was strengthened in December 2005, when the Government passed a comprehensive anti-trafficking bill, with assistance from a variety of international organizations. And while Ghana has not ratified the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, there is optimism that it will be ratified in the near future.
"We are definitely going to ratify the UN Convention," says Marilyn Amponsah, Director of the International Children's Desk for the Ministry of Women and Children's Affairs. "We have participated in ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) regional cooperation for many years, and we are now ready for the UN."
However, Amponsah stresses that the Ghanaian Government will need external assistance to be able to effectively implement the Convention. The international community could, for example, help build local capacity on human trafficking-related topics, finance micro-credit schemes to prevent and combat human trafficking, and provide the equipment necessary to perform day-to-day administrative tasks.
In fact, IOM has provided micro-credit assistance to some of the traffickers who have released children as well as to the parents and guardians of the children under its programme. However, there have been certain conditions attached to the provision of these loans, such as the development of a viable business plan and timely attendance at meetings.
"While there is a need for a certain grace period to establish their business," Rispoli says, "we don't want to be seen as Father Christmas. This way, we're not encouraging dependency."
Currently, IOM and APPLE both rescue children from trafficking situations and bring them back to their families. Rescued children are first taken to a government-run shelter for up to three months before they are reunited with their parents. At the shelter, they receive medical checks and treatment, psychological counselling and basic education, preparing them to attend school back home. However, insufficient resources limit what this institution can do.
"Our biggest challenge is lack of transportation," says Sharon Abbey, the shelter's Principal. "And we can't offer the children as much counselling as we would like. Their experiences can make them a bit difficult to deal with, but we would like to teach them responsible behaviour."
Having learned about the complexity of the child trafficking situation in Ghana, Julia Ormond says that in spite of the problems and the horrendous conditions facing many children, she is encouraged by the efforts and the commitment to fight child trafficking she has witnessed during her stay.
"I am touched by the work done by people on the ground here," she says. "It's effective! The villagers are responding (to the sensitization), as are the traffickers and children - it's fabulous to see!"
http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/about/#modernslavery
In 2013, modern slavery takes many forms, and is known by many names: slavery, forced labour or human trafficking.
- ‘Slavery’ refers to the condition of treating another person as if they were property – something to be bought, sold, traded or even destroyed.
- ‘Forced labour’ is a related but not identical concept, referring to work taken without consent, by threats or coercion.
- ‘Human trafficking’ is another related concept, referring to the process through which people are brought, through deception, threats or coercion, into slavery, forced labour or other forms of severe exploitation.
Whatever term is used, the significant characteristic of all forms of modern slavery is that it involves one person depriving another people of their freedom: their freedom to leave one job for another, their freedom to leave one workplace for another, their freedom to control their own body.
OTHER INFORMATION ON TRAFFICKING AND ROTARY
Here is a FaceBook link:
https://www.facebook.com/RotaryEndHumanTrafficking
http://endhtnow.com/
See also the story from The Rotarian Magazine at the end of this meeting.
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"THIS CLOSE" - We are ...
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SPEAKER - MY DAUGHTER, MALALA
Ziauddin Yousafzai is an educator, human rights campaigner and social activist. He hails from Pakistan's Swat Valley where, at great personal risk among grave political violence, he peacefully resisted the Taliban's efforts to shut down schools and kept open his own school. He also inspired his daughter, Malala Yousafzai, to raise her voice to promote the rights of children to an education. Ziauddin is the co-founder and serves as the Chairman of the Board for the Malala Fund.
He also serves as the United Nations Special Advisor on Global Education and also the educational attaché to the Pakistani Consulate in Birmingham, UK.
"Ziauddin ... set up a school where girls could study as well as boys, in a part of the world where the gender gap in education is vast."
--Guardian, October 7, 2013
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MODERN PROSTHETICS - HOW COMFORTABLE?
Even the most advanced prosthetic limb isn't useful for an amputee if wearing it gives them painful blisters and pressure sores. This is the observation that guides David Sengeh's work at the Biomechatronics group of MIT's Media Lab.
David Sengeh was born and raised in Sierra Leone, where more than 8,000 men, women and children had limbs amputated during a brutal civil war. He noticed that many people there opted not to wear a prosthesis because proper fit is such an issue.
Sengeh has pioneered a new system for creating prosthetic sockets, which fit a prothesis onto a patient's residual limb. Using MRI to map the shape, computer-assisted design to predict internal strains and 3D printing to allow for different materials to be used in different places, Sengeh is creating sockets that are far more comfortable than traditional models. These sockets can be produced cheaply and quickly, making them far more likely to help amputees across the globe.
Sengeh's work is attracting a lot of attention. He was named one of Forbes' 30 under 30 in Technology in 2014. And in April of 2014, Sengeh was named a winner of the "Cure it!" Lemelson-MIT National Collegiate Student Prize.
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WHAT CAN YOU DO?
Though this is an ad, it has a special meaning for everyone.
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A STORY FROM THE ROTARIAN MAGAZINE ON CHILD TRAFFICKING
http://therotarianmagazine.com/rotary-stories-rani-hong/
Rani Hong’s childhood ended at age seven. That was the last time she saw her mother and father, the last time she would have any contact with family for the next 21 years. Raised in a village with no running water in Kerala, India, Hong lived at home until her father’s health deteriorated, along with the family’s financial situation. Out of desperation, her mother sought help from a respected woman who offered to take Hong into her home and feed and educate her. Both parents regularly visited their young daughter, delighted by the care she seemed to be receiving, until one day they were told she’d been sent to a school in another town for a better education. It was a lie: Hong’s caretaker had sold her to recruiters trafficking in child slave labor.
“I was taken to an area where I did not know the language, where everyone was a stranger,” Hong recalls. “I cried for my mom to come and get me – that’s all a seven-year-old mind can understand.” Traumatized, she stopped eating and became physically and mentally ill. “My captors labeled me ‘destitute and dying,’ meaning that I had no value in the forced child labor market.” The only way the traffickers could profit from her, Hong explains, was to put her up for illegal international adoption. Trafficked into Canada, she was beaten, starved, and caged – “seasoned for submission,” in the parlance of her captors. A photo of her at age eight shows an emaciated little girl with prominent bruises on her arms and legs, whose eyes are swollen nearly shut. “I couldn’t even talk,” she says. “I had completely shut down.”
Stories like Hong’s are common. An estimated 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders every year, 150,000 from South Asia alone, but precise numbers are difficult to determine in this underground market. Many victims are enslaved in sweatshops and brothels or forced to beg on the streets, and few escape.
“My captors labeled me ‘destitute and dying,’ meaning that I had no value in the forced child labor market.”
Hong’s experience took a turn for the better when she was adopted: The single woman who raised her was a wonderful mother, a Rotary club helped send her to college, and the once-frail girl grew into a passionate voice for victims on the world stage. As a special adviser to the United Nations, Hong advocates for human rights and the rehabilitation of fellow survivors. She also runs the Tronie Foundation, which she and her husband established in 2006 to educate the public about trafficking and to support survivors in 20 countries through mentorship and healing programs.
She’s never forgotten her personal nightmare or the people who hurt her, but Hong is quicker to recall those who helped her, especially her adoptive mother, Nell. Nell found her through a legitimate agency that was unknowingly dealing with traffickers, and brought her home to Olympia, Wash., USA. “It took me a while to get out of the mental state I was in,” Hong says. “She spent so much time playing games with me, and just being with me.”
Unable to read or write English, the eight-year-old Hong was placed in a kindergarten class for children with special needs. To help her socialize with kids her own age, Nell enrolled her in after-school sports. “Nobody knew what to do with me at first,” Hong recalls. “But I became good at soccer, and that built my confidence. That’s why we stress sports and arts in our Tronie programs for rescued children.” Under Nell’s guidance, she caught up at school and her life assumed a normal rhythm. She was making plans to attend college when that stability was disrupted: Nell was diagnosed with terminal cancer. When Nell succumbed to her illness in 1989, the 17-year-old Hong had to call on all of her resources to survive – again.
“It was a difficult time,” she remembers. “I was alone, without any relatives in Olympia to turn to, not able to pay bills with my minimum-wage job and stay in high school, so I decided to drop out. A family from our church stepped in and helped make it possible for me to graduate. I was sure there was no way I could go to college.” But in 1991, she won a scholarship from the Rotary Club of Olympia to attend South Puget Sound Community College, where she studied business administration. “I didn’t know much about Rotary at the time, but since then, as I’ve traveled all over to give survivor workshops, Rotary clubs have played a pivotal role.” Hong has since collaborated with clubs on projects including a medical camp in northeastern India and an education and resource fair in Olympia focused on human trafficking. She also spoke at Rotary-UN Day in 2012.
Most striking about Hong, now in her early 40s, is the distance she’s put between her life today and the conditions she endured when she was young. Animated, with an easy smile, kind eyes, and the sort of intensity that commands attention, she naturally inspires others to share her goals – a quality she recognizes in the Rotarians she’s worked with.
That intensity has served her well in her role as special adviser for victims with the UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking. This past fall, she presented a three-point plan for the eradication of slavery to the UN General Assembly. She spoke from the heart, but her commitment, she told the assembly, “is not simply to rouse others to connect emotionally with the plight of voiceless victims, but to inspire action and ensure freedom for the estimated 20 to 30 million women and children enslaved around the world.” In that session, she also promoted the Freedom Seal, a visual tool created by the Tronie Foundation. Similar to a fair-trade or cruelty-free cosmetics seal, the Freedom Seal helps consumers and investors identify companies, products, and services that adhere to a strict set of guidelines designed to ensure humane treatment for all employees.
On a recent visit to the Arabian Peninsula, Hong was reminded of the need for the transparency and assurance the Freedom Seal provides. A young woman in one of her survivor workshops had been working for a hotel chain in Lebanon and was offered a better-paying position in Qatar, the world’s richest country. But when she arrived, she learned that she was required to relinquish her visa to her employer, the hotel manager, who then had complete control of her movements. The job was nothing like what she’d been promised: She was physically abused, held against her will, and forced to turn over most of her wages. “In that supply chain,” Hong says, “the manager was colluding with human traffickers, a common situation. And if we’d been staying in that hotel, we’d have had no idea of what was going on with the treatment of the staff. It happens all the time. This Lebanese woman was just one of thousands. There aren’t adequate laws to protect these people, or adequate resources for rehabilitation. If you get out, you don’t forget the torture and the beatings.”
Hong didn’t revisit her own trauma until she returned to India in her late 20s. She had avoided the trip for years, wary of dredging up difficult memories. But during a three-week journey, she found her birth mother through a series of acquaintances and began to understand what had happened to her. “The night I opened the door of my hotel room and saw her, and listened to her painful story of losing all contact with me, I knew I would become an advocate for anyone victimized by trafficking,” Hong says.
Back home in Olympia, she struggled at first to convince her own community that widespread modern child slavery existed. Her appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006 and the national attention that followed began to change minds, as did her presentations to many groups, including her former high school’s Rotaract club. Last year, she shared the stage at an event organized by Rotary clubs in Olympia with fellow survivor and activist Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped at age 14 from her home in Salt Lake City. Hong has made measurable progress and powerful allies: Her testimony before the Washington State legislature helped pass the first state-level anti-trafficking law in the country, and she enlisted the Dalai Lama’s aid in her cause at the inaugural Delhi Dialogue conference. And after she addressed the UN General Assembly, the delegates took action, naming 30 July 2014 the first World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. Hong hopes this accomplishment will bring international attention to the plight of victims.
Hong and her husband, Trong, who also bears the scars of a horrific childhood in his native Vietnam, are now the parents of four children. “My work has inspired me to talk to my own kids, to educate them at a young age about slavery,” she says. She cautions them against getting into cars with strangers, as most parents do, but tries not to be overprotective – a challenge, she admits, given her early life experience. She’s also instilled in them a compassionate streak: Her fifth-grade son, Andrew, recently participated in a school climbing competition that helped raise nearly $4,500 for the Tronie Foundation. “His elementary school was among the first in the United States to contribute to our cause,” she says with pride.
“I’ve never met anyone so dedicated to an issue,” says Los Angeles attorney Paul Hirose, who works with the Tronie Foundation, creating criteria for the Freedom Seal and helping to get companies on board. “Most people have no idea how greatly human trafficking affects us through the goods we use every day – food, or even the cotton clothing we wear. I didn’t, until Rani opened my eyes.”
Public awareness is the critical first step in the fight against slavery, and it comes with a price tag. The Hongs have sustained the Tronie Foundation with small donations and have used their own savings to promote their cause. With adequate funding, Rani hopes to provide school supplies for rescued children and shelter for HIV-positive women in Mumbai’s sex trade, and continue to build corporate and government participation. The cost of these efforts is high, but more significant to Hong is the value of a normal, healthy life for women and children. “I want to get the corporate world to change how the world views slavery,” she says. “No amount of money is too much to make that happen.”
Hong finds inspiration in the civil rights movement and the words of Fannie Lou Hamer, one of the era’s most instrumental activists. Embracing Hamer’s thought that “nobody’s free until everybody’s free,” Hong bonds with individual survivors. “They have to trust you,” she says. – Stephen Yafa
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TO END OUR MEETING
To end our meeting, please recite aloud (on your honour!) the Rotary Four-Way Test of the things we think, say, or do.
Lou deLagran leads us.
1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it BUILD GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
...and official close of meeting
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Thank you for stopping by our E-club meeting! We wish you well in the next week in all that you do for Rotary!
The meeting has now come to an end. Please do have a safe and happy week! If you have enjoyed our E-club meeting, please leave a comment below.
Rotary cheers!
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Visiting Rotarians. Click this link to Apply for a Make-up. We will send you and your club secretary a make-up confirmation.
Please consider a donation to our Club. Just as any Rotarian visiting a Rotary Club would be expected to make a donation, we hope you will consider a donation to our Rotary E-Club of the Caribbean, 7020. Please click the button below:
Active Members. Click to indicate your Attendance.
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HAPPY HOUR HANGOUT - Saturday morning, May 3 - Please note special time!
• 8:00 a.m. Atlantic Time (Miami Time)
• 7:00 a.m. Cayman Time
Rotary E-Club of the Caribbean, 7020 is inviting you to a scheduled Happy Hour Hangout on Saturday morning, May 3.
We are at the District Conference this weekend, and we are holding a special "live" Happy Hour Hangout.
This is a recurring meeting so the link is the same each Saturday morning. We look forward to seeing you there!
Join from a PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone or Android device:
• Go to https://zoom.us/join and enter meeting ID: 602 689 205
OR
• Click this URL to start or join. https://zoom.us/j/602689205
Join from dial-in phone line:
Dial:
+1 (415) 762-9988 or +1 (646) 568-7788Meeting ID: 602 689 205
Participant ID: Shown after joining the meeting
International numbers available: https://zoom.us/zoomconference
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