Yellowmen presentation

The RC of Senlac St Leonards held an awards evening in celebration of the club’s long-standing project in Northwest Kenya known as the Rotary Yellowmen Project and specifically to honour lead Rotary Yellowman Eddie McCall. Held on 23^rd April at the Relais Cooden Beach hotel in Bexhill it was coupled with the clubs annual St George’s day celebration, the room being decked out in red and white.

The plan was to present Eddie with the prestigious “Service Above Self Award” probably the highest award that Rotary can bestow on one of its members. Unfortunately, Eddie had been struck down with a serious lung infection following his latest trip to Kenya and was unable to attend the event.

The Rotary Yellowmen team is headed by Eddie on the Medical side, Mike Stewart on Education and Iain Robinson on Building. Fortunately, both Mike and Iain were present, and Mike was able to deliver a comprehensive illustrated presentation on what had been achieved with the Kenyan Pokot peoples in respect of the medical facilities that are now available and the education programme which is being rolled out. The programme has a holistic approach providing medical accommodation and specifically toilets and showers at the various residential schools backed up by manufacturing programme of washable sanitary products.

 District Governor Brian Dunne explained, “The Service Above Self award has to be applied for at District level recognising Service within Rotary at home and abroad as well as within the recipient’s local community. These annual awards are only given to 150 of Rotary’s 1.4 million members in over 200 countries so its recipient has to have done something very special. When I was asked to consider this award to Eddie, I was only too pleased to take it forward. Eddie has done such fantastic work in Kenya over a number of years and has made such a difference to the local people.”

Brian asked Mike if he would receive the award on Eddie’s behalf and subsequently present it to Eddie at his home which Mike was pleased to do. He reported that Eddie said, “I am quite moved to receive this award.”

Senlac St Leonards Club President Marcia Bryant then presented Mike with a PHF (Paul Harris Fellow) pin and certificate saying how much the club appreciated the support he had given to the project as an Honorary Member of the club.

The rare nature of this presentation prompted DG Brian to invite some of his District Team to the event and the club was proud to receive Past President of Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland Denis Spiller, Assistant Governors Graham Forster, Frances Hodge and Kevin Fielding as well as Past Governors Chris Brenchley and Himansu Basu. Some had travelled from as far as north Kent to mark this special occasion.

The Rotary Yellowmen project has now been running for over 20 years and recently benefited from a $102,000 Rotary Global Grant which directly impacted a new water supply, fitting out a new maternity unit, showers and toilets as well as education programmes for year’s 1, 2 and 3. This Grant was made possible by a partnership from our own District 1120, Rotary District 2760 in Japan and the RC of Stevenage Grange demonstrating the power of Rotary Worldwide.