Speaker Isobel Clifford - International Projects

Member Isobel Clifford, currently a Rotary Assistant 1010 District Governor, gave a full and interesting account of the Rotary District Grant programme, which assist projects both at home and abroad.

Along with the other 88 clubs in the 1010 District, the Rotary Club of Kilrymont St Andrews donates a sizeable sum annually, normally around £60,000 in the District’s total, to the Rotary Foundation, the international funding arm of the organisation. Some 50% of that is returned to allow the District to award grants for projects set up and run by individual clubs.

Sometimes it is match-funding, on other occasions at the discretion of the District 1010 officials, the grant can double the club’s financial input.

All the projects which attract the funding support humanitarian issues, education, helping to alleviate poverty and/or disease and are supported worldwide by Rotary Clubs such as Kilrymont.

Rather than just fund-raising the club members can participate and become active in joining vocational training teams overseas. An example would be a project in Cameroon to construct and maintain fresh and clean water supplies, or to provide new schools and education for the under-privileged.

A recent project grant provided £2125 to assist with much-needed cataract operations in Sri Lanka, while another funded transportation of an entire container of books to schoolchildren in Ghana.

Isobel described a number of projects funded and run by other District 1010 clubs, such as Leven, Cupar, Banff, Aberdeen, St Andrews and, of course, Kilrymont.

These included water and sanitation infrastructure in Nepal, constructing other water-producing plants in Zambia and Uganda, and Kilrymont’s ongoing assistance and support for a school project in one of the poorest regions of South Africa.

David Sandford proposed the vote of thanks by saying that he and the assembled audience had found the presentation an enlightening and informative experience, which would probably trigger some further thought on identifying new global projects.