International

Plans for the year:

Mike Clewes (Chair), John Barrow, Barrie Birch, Robert Askew

Saltergate Children’s Home Ethiopia

Following the closure of the Tigre Trust in Eritrea owing to the death of our dear friend David Wright Alan Morrell introduced the club to Kevin Morley who was starting a new project in Addis Ababa. Rather than taking children off the streets and putting them in orphanages Kevin organises for the children to live in small houses with a family member, perhaps a grandmother or an aunt and gets them into school. Since it’s inception 2015 we have supported Kevin’s work and seen the number of children cared for grow from 2 to more than 50. We will continue our support for Saltergate during the coming year. http://saltergatechildrenshome.org

Micro Loans

Rather than sending funds to feed disadvantaged people in distant lands we will look to invest in their future. We feel a good way of achieving this is through Micro Loans. We will talk to Kevin Morley to establish whether he would be interested in having oversight of such a scheme in Ethiopia. He currently helps some of the widowed mothers get off the streets by starting a small business and this could fit in very well. If he is not interested, we will examine any schemes currently running in D1040.

Ukraine

We will find out what aid can be given to Ukraine refugees settling in the Bradford area. If nothing suitable can be found we will see what other Rotary clubs in the area are doing in conjunction with other Rotary clubs in Eastern Europe.

Recycling Goods for Sending to Third World Countries

We currently collect old spectacles that the Community Committee take to SPECSAVE at Specsavers in Guiseley. We will also review other Rotary schemes that are operating in D1040 such as old bicycles and wheelchairs. In addition we will revisit Ilkley Tools for Africa (https://www.tfsr.org/ ) who we last spoke with in 2015.

Sand Dams for Kenya

The D1040 Sand Dams scheme has fallen by the wayside and they are looking around for another partner. As this has been hanging on for several years we have decided to withdraw out proposed donation and will return the £500 District Grant that we received towards the project.

ShelterBox / Water Aid / AquaBox

We have recently not been successful in water projects in Africa; see Sand Dams above and before that we attempted to support a charity doing roller barrels for water but that cheque was never cashed. So now we will only support either ShelterBox or AquaBox if an emergency arises where we feel such a provision is useful.