18:30 Dinner - Speaker Dr Jenny Cane

HELPING CHILDREN IN EASTERN EUROPE AND AFRICA

A minute’s silence was observed at the outset of Henley Rotary Club’s meeting at Henley Golf Club on Tuesday evening in remembrance of two people who had passed away the previous Saturday.

Tony Lane had been a member of the club for many years, serving as president in 1978-79 and having been heavily involved in continuing and running the annual midnight matinee which had been started by the club in 1961.

Evelyne Philpot was the last president of the Inner Wheel Club of Henley before it disbanded and was honoured  recentlly ?????????????????????women of achievement?????

Encouraging governments in less developed countries to “de-institutionalise” children by trying to place them in family environments is the primary aim of the charity, “Hope andHomes for Children,” and an inspiring talk on its work was given by Dr Jenny Cane, an engineer at the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy and a volunteer speaker for Hope andHomes.

The charity was formed by retired British UN Commander Colonel Mark Cook in 1994 when he and his wife saw the horrific conditions in which children were living in so-called ‘homes’ in the former Yugoslavia

The early work was focussed on improving the living conditions of children in state-run institutions by re-building and investing in equipment and facilities and sending out qualified childcare volunteers to provide training to existing staff.  

However, as time passed, it was realised that what the children really wanted was a family and a home and the focus changed to closing the institutions and placing the children either with their own families, their close relations, fostering or adopting families, or in small family groups of not more than eight in care homes.

Dr Cane said that the emphasis was in eastern Europe and two countries in Africa, Rwanda and Sudan. She said that when the charity began work in Romania in 1999 there were 100,000 children trapped in institutional care, whereas today this figure is approximately 9,000 and the Romanian government has committed to working with the charity to close every state-run institution by 2020.

Hope and Homes has 50 paid staff who go to the various countries to assist in the work but all the rest, including the speakers, are volunteers,.

Project Ubuntu (ubuntu means humanity to others) is a scheme in Rwanda which enables families to become self-reliant over a period of three years, costing