US $35,000 Global Grant Awarded
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Doug Sutton from Wollundry Rotary announced the approval of a US $35,000 Rotary Global Grant to provide pig raising and fish farming to 12 villages in Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was one of the few large grants approved in the district and PDG Gary and Marilyn Roberts, the original grant applicants, are pictured above with Committee Chair Doug Sutton.
It was a long process and major success for all involved and PDG Gary and Marilyn and Doug are to be congratulated for this outstanding achievement. A complete copy of Doug's announcement to the club is printed below: |
Congratulations! Your global grant application for funding to provide pig raising and fish farming to 12 villages in Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, submitted by Bukavu/district-9150 and Wollundry-Wagga Wagga/district-9700, has been approved by The Rotary Foundation. The award is in the amount of $35.775.00 |
To say I was pleased and somewhat surprised is an understatement for it is not easy to get a global grant application up, as I discovered. I know of only two others in our district in recent times. The process for this grant began in early 2016 when Gary Roberts was DG and Marylin was wanting to sponsor a program to benefit women who were disadvantaged. The idea of a grant to assist women and children in the Democratic Republic of Congo presented itself when Dr Elaine Dietsch gave a talk at a combined Rotary Foundation dinner at the Country Club. A number of Rotarians from different clubs were present and were impressed and inspired to act by Dr. Dietsch’s talk. Gary and Marilyn took up the challenge and wrote a document outlining a global grant application for DRC in January 2016. Gary asked me if I would chair a committee to advance the project. A number of committee meetings were held but it became obvious that a lot of spade work needed to be done and it was more efficient for one person to take this work on with assistance when required. While this was envisaged a project for all Wagga clubs TRF requires one club take responsibility for the grant and so our then President Geoff Hamilton and the Board agreed that our club Wollundry would be the responsible club in answer to a request from then DG Gary. The new board under President Geoff Breust agreed to continue with the application as it was obviously a long term project. Throughout the process many emails have gone back and forth. Contacts were established with The Rotary Club of Bukavu in District 9150 in the Congo. We all had to learn how to use the grant application tool on the RI Website. John and Elaine Dietsch along with Gary and Marylin drew up a number of draft applications before we actually loaded it on to the application tool. So you can see it was quite a collaborative effort. A key figure in the management of the project is Dr. Luc Mulumbalimba Masururu whose organisation Mission in Health Care and Development will select the women and provide the training and ongoing support for the pig raising and fish farming. He is an outstanding human being. A qualified medical doctor, a member of Parliament who gives up a third of his salary to fund MHCD, he is untiring in his work for the disadvantaged in his country. We met a couple of weeks ago in Canberra where he came to meet with government representatives seeking assistance for his country. His enormous energy, commitment and calm joyous presence is inspiring. He is married with four children. His first wife died mysteriously while he was on an overseas trip and is believed to have been assassinated. Dr. Luc will be in Australia again in September at the invitation of Zonta an international service organization with the mission of advancing the status of women. who will pay for his trip. While here he has agreed to visit Wagga and we will have the pleasure of hearing him at our Meeting in the first week of September. His organisation has a recognised track record in providing practical assistance and training to hundreds of disadvantaged people in his country. Fellows this grant is a great honour and recognition for our Club. While not as scarce as hens; teeth Global grants are not given lightly. Our Club will be required to put in a relatively small amount of funds as District and Foundation will provide the bulk. Our Clubs’ plural commitment will be in the order of $3000US so if another club participates as at least one has indicated (Sunrise) then we will be achieveing a lot with only a small committment of money. Make no mistake this project will have a huge impact on a lot of lives I want to thank Gary and Marylin for giving me the opportunity to steer this project to the happy place it is today. Thank You all. |