A new vision for Kaitaia Rotary

Kaitaia Rotary Club has probably hosted more District 9910 governors over the years than most members can begin to count, but the recently installed incumbent, Australian Lindsay Ford, introduced a very new concept when he called on the club last week.

Mr Ford had two major messages, one extolling the virtues of seeking "matching grants", which would maximise the benefits accruing from funds raised for worthy causes, and more radically that, as well as doing good works in far off places, Rotary might well be able to invest time, energy and money in equally worthy causes within the Far North.

On an international level the Rotary focus has long been on the eradication of polio, an enormous task which may now be close to completion. Mr Ford and his wife Alison had had first-hand experience of that campaign, taking part in a three-day polio vaccination blitz in India (where 1.6 million children were vaccinated in one day). The battle had not yet been won, he said, but the signs were very encouraging.

India had notified 360,000 cases of polio 25 years ago, he said, but had now been polio-free for 20 months. The disease persisted in just three countries - Pakistan, which reported 24 cases in the last year, Nigeria and Afghanistan, but re-infection of currently polio-free countries was no more than a plane ride away.

The campaign would continue, immunising children in high-risk countries three times a year every year until no cases had been notified worldwide for 12 months.

Mr Ford cited a project launched by his one-time club, Bundaberg, as evidence of the benefits of matching grants. The club had funded artificial limbs for Indian children whose legs had been broken by their parents so they could earn their living as beggars. As they grew older their success declined, however. With Bundaberg's fundraising matched by the district, by an Indian Rotary club and its district, and the Rotary Foundation, the $3500 raised in Queensland became $30,000, which was used to build 16 shelters/homes where former beggars were able to make a living via the manufacturing of clothing and the like.

He believed the time had come for Rotary to look at what it might achieve closer to home, however.

"Rotary is needed here too, but it's never been on our radar," he said.

"From what I'm told it would not be hard to identify potential programmes here, but projects need to come from the community via Rotary, not just from Rotary."

The future focus, he said, would be on child literacy, disease prevention, water/sanitation, peace and conflict prevention/resolution, maternal and child health, economic and community development.

"I'm pretty fair dinkum when I say Rotary wants to do something here," Mr Ford added. And he had a clear vision of how he believed Rotary needed to adapt to changing times.

"What people see of Rotary is a very small part of picture," he said, "but this is an organisation that people want to be part of. There is no future in clubs being the way Rotary wants them to be.

"In the past Rotary was seen as elitist, a bit of a secret society, and perhaps it's still a little male, pale and stale. That's something we have to address."