Rotary File - November 19, 2013
The meeting began at 8 am.
President Casey talked about the Gettysburg address, and the well-known line: Government of the people, for the people, and from the people. Jim Peterson remarked that the emphasis was on “people”.
Since November is “The Rotary Foundation” month, President Casey asked Nancy Pacha to talk about it. Nancy mentioned that she started investing in TRF after she participated at a National Immunization Day in India. Nancy was inspired to go by her grandmother, who suffered polio and was left with a profound limp. In India, Nancy saw the incredible poverty of the people, their basic needs not satisfied, the scarcity of opportunity among other things. She realized the impact Matching Grants can have to make this a better world.
President Casey received a letter from RI President Ron Burton to help fund Rotary efforts to help the Philippines after the Super Typhoon Haylan. To make your donations, please go to www.shelterboxusa.org.
Guests: Laura Piragine, guest of Nenu Piragine. Katie Langenfeld, guest of Ann and Tom Langenfeld. Elliott Soemadi, guest of Andreas Soemadi.
Nan: Diversity in Rotary: at first, Rotarians filled in Classifications, with the request not to have too many of just one. It was done to promote diversity, for members of a club to be truly representative of the community.
President Casey mentioned D6000 Program of Recognition, Guardian of Integrity.
The first recipient of such an award was ……, from our club. The 2012-2013 distinction went to Pat Snack, also a member of our club.
Proposals are being accepted to nominate this year’s Guardian of Integrity in our club.
Announcements.
Roger mentioned the need for volunteers to do dishes after the meeting.
Liz reminded members that we still need one or two host families for our Inbound, preferably on the East Side of town.
Vernette requested members to answer the invitation for the 25th Anniversary dinner by December 1st at the latest.
Can Do Project. There is going to be a meeting.
Elections for Board Members will be in December.
Happy bucks. There were lots of happy members!
Mark Patton introduced the Speaker, Prof. Craig Just, an engineer professor, a former member of our club.
The topic: World Toilet Day. It was sanctioned by the United Nations this year, “in an effort to make sanitation a global development priority”.
Facts:
There are 2.6 million people in the world today with no access to basic sanitation, in spite of the Millennium Development Goal to cut that number in half.
--According to the World Health Organization, the lowest coverage:
1. Sub-Saharan Africa. Only 31% will have adequate sanitation.
2. Southern Asia:36%
3. Oceania or islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean: 56%
According to the WHO, 1.1 billion people in the world relieve themselves in the open air.
This increases the risk of transmitted disease.
The Ganges river in India has 300,000 gallons of raw sewage per minute. Startling, since one teaspoon (one gram) of feces may contain
10 million viruses,
1 million bacteria,
1,000 parasitic cysts, and
100 worm eggs.
Diseases transmitted through water contaminated by human feces include:
Diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and hepatitis.
In Africa, 115 people die every hour due to poor sanitation.
The WHO estimates that half the developing world’s people are sick with diseases associated with dirty water and bad sanitation.
The World Bank says that lack of proper sanitation results in $260 billion losses a year, on a “good day”, due to health costs and loss of output.
UNICEF reports that 2,000 children die each day from poor sanitation and contaminated water supplies.
Of the world’s 7 billion people, 6 billion have mobile phones, but only 4.5 billion have access to toilets.
The speaker’s quote: “knowledge in absence of action, not worth it”.
The meeting was adjourned at 8 am.