None of us will forget how the pandemic altered our world and our lives. Each of us had to traverse this period of uncertainty, and no one had a free pass from the effects.
I personally believe this has created space for a different kind of global leadership — one that is courageous, empathetic, and vulnerable. I met my good friend Anniela Carracedo online in early 2020. She is one such leader, and I'm thrilled to turn this month's column over to her.
— Jennifer Jones
In March 2020, I had a panic attack. I couldn't breathe, and I felt a terrible pain in my chest.
It had been a few days since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and I was in the middle of my year as a Rotary Youth Exchange student in the United States. Think about it: an 18-year-old girl stuck in a different country, with a foreign language, with people she had only met six months before. It was scary.
But I am familiar with uncertainty. I was born and raised in Venezuela, which is going through one of the worst humanitarian and political crises in the Western Hemisphere. But my mom always said, "Challenges are nothing more than needs that require a solution."
I called up my Interact and Youth Exchange friends. Together, we organized an online meeting to share projects and get inspired by what everyone else was doing during the quarantine. In that first meeting, we had 70 people, mainly students, from 17 countries.
From that beginning, we built an online platform for Rotary youths worldwide to share their experiences and inspire others with project ideas during isolation. We looked for mentors and supporters who would help our group connect young people, share cultures, and open new collaborative opportunities for international service projects. We called it Rotary Interactive Quarantine, or RIQ.
After only a year, we engaged with more than 5,000 students from 80 countries. Several of our team members became district Interact representatives and district committee members, and some of us even serve on Rotary International councils.
Eventually, quarantine restrictions were being lifted, and the needs of our participants were changing. At our last official meeting as RIQ, Past RI President Barry Rassin inspired us to create even bigger change, so we transformed RIQ into the Rotary Youth Network, or RYN.
A few of our members, including me, were selected to serve on the inaugural Interact Advisory Council, where we presented our vision for youth in Rotary to the RI Board of Directors.
Our presentation to the Board inspired President Jennifer and her team to create a Youth Advisory Council in Rotary International, which I am honored to serve on as a co-chair.
The Rotary Youth Network officially launched during a breakout session at the 2022 Rotary International Convention in Houston. Five of us, who had participated in Interact, Youth Exchange, and Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, traveled across continents to launch an organization we had kicked off online two years before. The convention was also the first time we had met in person.
When my friends and I finished our talk, we realized more than 500 people were giving us a standing ovation. Tears filled our eyes, and the feeling of excitement and accomplishment took over.
Who would have thought that a panic attack would lead to this?
Maternal and child care is one of Rotary’s main causes. Rotary makes health care available to vulnerable mothers and children so they can live longer and grow stronger.
It is estimated that close to 6 million children under the age of five die each year because of malnutrition, inadequate health care, and poor sanitation, which can all be prevented. Rotary clubs and districts dedicate their efforts to improve access to quality care so that mothers and children can have long-serving opportunities for a healthy future. Projects to support mothers and children include mobile prenatal clinics, cancer screening, immunizations, and training on how to protect themselves and their children from disease.
Several projects highlight innovative solutions that provide health care to mothers and children:
Nigeria averages only one physician for every 2,500 people and creative solutions are needed to expand health care reach. Read about how innovative integration of telehealth medicine have helped those living in rural Nigeria.
Brazil has experienced high infant mortality rates and several Rotary clubs partnered together to provide solutions. Read about how a Rotary club partnership led to an increase in resources for the incubators and access to Neonatal intensive care units at the Dr. Leopoldo Bevilacqua Regional Hospital in Brazil’s Ribeira Valley.
Watch this video to learn more about how Rotary supports mothers and children:
Project Amigo supports students from Colima, Mexico so that they can create their own educational opportunities and better their quality of life.
To do this, we remove the financial barriers to education through scholarships that include school fees, transportation, uniforms and school supplies, and a hot lunch. Our staff also provide tutoring and mentoring during Project Amigo Homework Club. Homework Clubs also provide us with a way of keeping in close touch with the students so we can identify problems before they become so severe that the student is forced to drop out of school.
We also provide opportunities for volunteers from other countries to do valuable humanitarian service that creates and fosters friendship and understanding across cultures.
Education and literacy are powerful tools to create a brighter future for the world’s children who in turn benefit the nations they live in. Since 1984, Project Amigo has worked with rural youth in Mexico to continue their formal schooling including university level.
Project Amigo became a U.S. 501c3 non-profit charity in 1996, providing educational scholarships, material support, enrichment activities, and health care to disadvantaged youth in the state of Colima, MexicoVolunteer Work Weeks based at our headquarters in the beautiful hillside village of Cofradía de Suchitlán allow volunteers from other countries to engage in humanitarian service and become both friends and sponsors of Mexican youth seeking the many advantages of education.
Project Amigo supports students from Colima, Mexico so that they can create their own educational opportunities and better their quality of life.
To do this, we remove the financial barriers to education through scholarships that include school fees, transportation, uniforms and school supplies, and a hot lunch. Our staff also provide tutoring and mentoring during Project Amigo Homework Club. Homework Clubs also provide us with a way of keeping in close touch with the students so we can identify problems before they become so severe that the student is forced to drop out of school.
We also provide opportunities for volunteers from other countries to do valuable humanitarian service that creates and fosters friendship and understanding across cultures.
Education and literacy are powerful tools to create a brighter future for the world’s children who in turn benefit the nations they live in. Since 1984, Project Amigo has worked with rural youth in Mexico to continue their formal schooling including university level.
Project Amigo became a U.S. 501c3 non-profit charity in 1996, providing educational scholarships, material support, enrichment activities, and health care to disadvantaged youth in the state of Colima, Mexico.
Volunteer Work Weeks based at our headquarters in the beautiful hillside village of Cofradía de Suchitlán allow volunteers from other countries to engage in humanitarian service and become both friends and sponsors of Mexican youth seeking the many advantages of education.
http://www.projectamigo.com/
Edmonton West in the Community
Volunteering at the Food Bank
Edmonton West Rotarians at work with MacEwan Rotaract volunteers, building hampers at the Edmonton Food Bank. We were challenged to build 200 hampers…..we built 300! The Power of Rotary!!
Our Rotaractives Group spent a lovely few hours in the Lois Hole Centennial Provincial Park. We walked into St. Albert and stopped for refreshments and walked back.
On the west side of St. Albert is Big Lake, where a little time spent can be a soaring wildlife experience.
More than 235 bird species have been recorded at Big Lake, with some 180 recorded annually. At-risk species that use the lake include Trumpeter Swans, Sprague's Pipits, Peregrine Falcons, Short-eared Owls and Bald Eagles that nest on the west end of the lake.
In the fall, the lake is a staging area for Tundra Swans and Pelicans. Fall populations of swans have been as high as 20,000! Cormorants, Loons, Great Blue Herons and Ospreys fish the lake. Lesser Yellowlegs, Dowitchers, American Avocets and Sandpipers reside during low water years.
Fish species found in the lake include Northern Pike, Goldeye, White Sucker, Walleye and Sticklebacks. Did you know that Big Lake was once a spawning area for Sturgeon for which the river system is now named?
Lands surrounding Big Lake provide important habitat for Moose, White-tailed Deer, Beaver, Muskrat, Mink, Skunk, Coyote, Red Fox, Porcupine, Snowshoe Hare, and Red Squirrel.
Settlers from the St. Albert Mission, founded in 1861, hunted waterfowl on the lake and moose and deer along its shores, fished its waters and trapped beaver and muskrat from the wetlands. The lake and river provided drinking water to St. Albert residents well into the 1900s.
The Snow Goose Festival
Hosted by Darryll White
We had a great day in Tofield at the Snow Geese Festival in Tofield. This time of year all sorts of geese, swans, cranes and ducks return from over wintering down south. So we booked a 2 hour tour to hopefully catch a glimpse of this spectacle.
The group was Jim and Dianne Johnston, Dave Turner and Marnie and Darryll and Pat White. We traveled around the countryside and local ponds and lakes to see if we could see snow geese specifically but we found out there are five different species of Geese we could have seen. We saw many Canada Geese and it wasn't until a young lad of around 10 years old yelled out "stop the bus", scaring all us old farts of course. Yes, there was a flock of snow geese. They landed in a pond just shy of my phone camera but they are majestic flying in the sky. We saw white chested geese as well and plenty of species of ducks, a few ret tail hawks and if course Robins. Spring has sprung!
After the tour we ventured off to Sherwood Park to have dinner at Mexico Lindo. Great food, great company and lots of stories and laughs. We think we will come back next year.
Welcome New Members
Welcome to Wendy and Bern, our newest Rotarians welcomed by RC of Edmonton West President Doug and Membership Chair Bruce!
Capital City Rotary Integrity Awards Gala
If you have nominated a local hero for an Integrity Award or if you'd like to know more about the heros among us, or if you'd just like to have a great evening with great people, the Capital City Rotary Integrity Awards Gala is the event for you!
Join us for the gala dinner in celebration of Capital City Integrity Award winners. The event takes place at the Chateau Louis Conference Centre (11727 Kingsway NW) on May 18 at 6 p.m..
Tickets are $75 per person if you pay by cheque or e-transfer; $78 if you pay by credit card. Let us know any dietary concerns, and for options to pay.
Please reply by May 10 (early registration is encouraged!)
If you have any questions, please contact Vicky Grabb @ 780 458 7456 or vgrabb@shaw.ca
Our club's Annual Golf FUNdraiser is on Thursday July 27 at Cougar Creek Golf Resort. We still a few foursomes to fill. Come on out and help raise funds for all the great things Rotary does in our local community and around the world.
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