Rotary Club of Kenilworth

International Committee

Report for AGM, 19 April 2010

I wish to start by thanking the members of the International Committee for their work, advice and support during the last year.

Our major initiative was to join with Southam 2000 and Leamington Spa to support the water supply project in Bo in Sierra Leone. This arose as a result of One World Link (OWL) and both the District and County Councils. We have allocated £1,000 for this project, working with the Rotary Club of Bo. If this project is successful we will work with Southam 2000 and Leamington to fund further projects. In the event we contributed £750 towards the construction of a water hydrant, and we are monitoring progress.

The Committee is always anxious for feedback about how the Club’s charity money is spent abroad and so it was interesting to have Nigel Willgrass come to the Club to let us know how the £3,000 raised by the Club after the tsunami disaster on Boxing Day 2004 was spent, and what the ongoing problems were. His presentation showed the difficulties of funding such projects.

Water-related projects remain a high priority of the Committee and £1,880 was given to Water Aid to be spent on tap stands, hand pumps, the training of pump attendants, ten bicycles, five wells, one school sanitation unit and the training of people to build toilet squares. We deliberately emphasized training to encourage self-sufficiency. We also contributed £250 towards a water-related school project in Ghana organised by Rugby Rotary Club.

Under Literacy and Education, we supported Joe Homan, Uyogo Village Trust, Sangam Village School, the Nepal Trust and Bwengo village. Under Health and Hunger we supported the Worcestershire Farmers Overseas Action Group, Christian Outreach, Impact (the Lifeline Express hospital train in India) and Remit (Rotarians eliminating malaria in Tanzania).

As members of the club know, we have vigorously supported the End Polio Now campaign and paid our matching grant allocation early. We were commended for this by District.

Last year there was an upsurge in applications for VSO and eight young people were supported. This upsurge has not been repeated this year. However, we did support special constable Rose Lee’s fund-raising cycle ride in Russia, and gave £500 to Kenilworth School for a World Challenge expedition to Ecuador. We gave £300 to two doctors from Kenilworth who are working in an outreach clinic in Belize. We also supported an Atherstone initiative for a victory outreach project in South Africa. This was a modest investment of £100.

The International Committee has publicized some of its activities in Kenilworth Connect to raise the profile of the Club in the town.

Our contribution to Foundation has been paid in full and we attended some Foundation seminars organised by District. We wish Peter Roberts success as Chair of the District Foundation Committee. I also wish to thank Jerry Duckett for hosting most of the meetings of the Committee.

Zig Layton-Henry

Chairman

International & Foundation