RAWCS = Rotary Australia World Community Services
At its last meeting the Club welcomed Rotarian Alan Laughton from the Kooweerup-Lang Lang Club who is the District Representative for RAWCS, to speak about his recent Vanuatu visits on a specific project.
Chairman Gary Scanlon introduced visiting Rotarian Alan Laughton who spoke of his experiences with Rotary Australia World Community Service Ltd. (RAWCS), a limited company formed to support Australian Rotarians and Rotary Clubs in assisting disadvantaged communities and individuals with humanitarian aid projects.
The company objective is to manage the Rotary Australia Overseas Aid Fund, Rotary Australia Benevolent Society and the Developed Country Disaster Fund to enable Rotarians, the public and the corporate sector to deliver humanitarian aid and charitable support through a range of projects including Rotarians Against Malaria, Donations In Kind and Australian Charitable Support.
To facilitate Rotarians undertaking voluntary work, the Board has engaged professional support in the fields of information technology, communications and marketing and has established a staffed office to process the administrative, accounting and banking functions. RAWCS is not an emergency response organization, but rather looks to engage in sustainable, developmental or relief projects.
Alan told those assembled that District 9820 only had 4 RAWCS Projects that were active and three of those go back a fair way in time. The three other South Eastern Districts had many more and the Melbourne Metro District actually had 40 on the go at present.
Alan’s personal involvement was in Vanuatu on the island of Ambrym rebuilding the Mbossung Centre School that was destroyed by Cyclone Pam in 2015. He has taken two trips so far with a third planned to finish off the project in May this year.
Whilst this is a District Project it has been undertaken in cooperation with the RNZWCS, New Zealand’s equivalent of RAWCS and under the auspices of the Rotary Club of Birkenhead.
The Island is a very remote part of Vanuatu and this in itself presented several problems in the logistics of getting personnel and supplies to the project site.
Accommodation was rudimentary with the volunteers sleeping on blow up mattresses in a hut, with no shower other than a bucket and ladle, until they were able to construct better facilities for themselves and ultimately for the school students and staff.
The Island itself is about 6 times the size of Phillip Island and has a permanent population of around 7,700. The locals were only too pleased to supply as much labour as required and insisted on feeding the volunteers. Meals that consisted of a lot of rice, tropical fruit, and fish.
Alan acknowledged that without the support of local labour the task could not have been completed, they were an excellent, knowledgeable work force.
Reconstruction of the school facility meant that many buildings had to be constructed apart from the School itself. Showers, toilets, teacher accommodation, dormitories, offices and a kindergarten were all destroyed in the cyclone and had to be built to the Queensland building standards for protection from future cyclones.
Dormitories were needed for year 7 & 8 students, with some walking 20 kilometres to school on Sunday and home again on Friday. These students pay for their education, food and accommodation, whilst primary school up to year 6 is free and is accessed by children more local to the school itself.
The total cost of the Project is $140,000US and as of now only requires the completion of a kindergarten to finish the project.
Alan strongly recommended that Rotarians should consider getting involved in a hands on way with such humanitarian projects. Apart from filling the need of people in desperate circumstances the opportunity to mix with other Rotarians and volunteers, often from different parts of the world, was also a pleasurable experience.
On this project alone there were Kiwis and Americans with some 60 volunteers overall. Even though the Kiwis knew nothing about AFL, and only wanted to brag about Rugby and constantly complained about us sending them our possums, they were great fun to be with.
Rotarians do not have to wait for a local District Project, a visit to the website rawcs.org.au lists all ongoing projects and you would be made most welcome to put yourself forward on any project, anywhere, that may be of interest to you.
Chairman Gary in thanking Alan for his presentation commented on how inspiring it was to meet and listen to some one such as Alan, who is so passionate about meeting the humanitarian needs of others.