Rotary Club of Keighley

International Committee

The Rotary Club of Keighley - International Service Committee

The principal aims of our International Service Committee are fundraising and service.

Using a number of service projects established within Rotary International, Rotary clubs can participate when the need arises. We can respond rapidly when disasters occur, providing shelter, safe water and equipment through a number of schemes e.g. ShelterBox, Aquabox and Lifebox etc. The common disasters are earthquakes and floods and sometimes, avalanches.

Longer term projects exist which involve practical solutions and encourage sustained development. There are schemes which improve farming, can help education and training, can establish infrastructures and rebuild the lives of orphaned and abandoned children, in areas of war and other disasters. They can help people who are disabled through disease, lack of knowledge or because of the shortage of health services.

Over the years we have supported Hope and Homes for Children in Eastern Europe and Africa, Impact's Lifeline Express in India, which provides operating theatres, Mercy Ships which provide medical care and development aid at an economic cost and free of charge to recipients and the Nepal Trust which takes volunteers including doctors and nurses who can man health posts and a small hospital in a remote district, north west of Katmandu. We have supported Riders for Health, Send a Cow, Vision Aid Overseas, Wateraid, PolioPlus and the Wheelchair Foundation. We regularly support the Convoy to the Ukraine which is organised by the Rotary Club of Birstall Luddites.

During 2004 - 2005 we were heavily involved in the financing of the Kaluwachikudy Saraswathy Vidyalaya School at a village south of Batticalao in Sri Lanka, using money collected after the tsunami on Boxing Day 2004.

One of our Past Presidents, Maurice Baren has raised funds over the years both for SOS Sahel and for the Nepal Trust to provide computer education at Durbar School in Katmandu. We have also supported the Rotary Club of Bradford Blaize with their work for the Tigre Trust. The trust facilitates medical aid for the nomadic people in the province of Tigre, a desert region in that part of Eritrea, East Africa.

 

The committee members for 2012/2013 are as follows:-

Chairman                                           Rotarian Rosemary Makin

                                                            Rotarian Alan Morten

                                                            Rotarian Peter Mott

                                                            Rotarian John Broughton

                                                            Rotarian Alan Foster

                                                            Rotarian Zahoor Rehman

                                                             Rotarian Marie Hickman

                                                          

 

                                                       Hope and Homes for Children

                                                         Malenge Project – South Africa

The International committees of Keighley Rotary Club and Scarborough Cavaliers Rotary Club have joined forces to raise some £5000 during 2009/10 in support of the Hope and Homes Malenge Project    

Hope and Homes for Children is an international children's charity working across Africa and Central and Eastern Europe to transform the lives of children who are orphaned, abandoned or vulnerable. The charity serves to enable these children to grow up within the love of a family and the security of a home, so that they can fulfil their potential.    

To quote Mark and Caroline Cook , the Founder Presidents of Hope and Homes ' We believe passionately that every child has the right to grow up within the love of a family so that they have a real chance of a future.   

Malenge is in South Africa.   Across Africa, HIV/AIDS and war have decimated entire communities, leaving many children living alone, and facing a bleak future. Even families supported by an adult are vulnerable and struggle to cope when faced with illness or poverty.   Hope and Homes have created the tools to enable them to target those in greatest need, accurately assess their circumstances and support them in the most effective way.      

The Rotary Clubs of Keighley and Scarborough Cavaliers have joined forces as an innovative and effective way to reach the promised target.            

Haiti Earthquake

The Club responded quickly and donated a Shelterbox to the relief effort

See Photo Galleries: Shelterboxes Arrive in Haiti