Anthem: Gordon Brown
Toast to Canada, The Queen & Rotary: Pres. Basil Dias
Grace: Arthur Retnakaran
Attending: 11 including 2 guests from Emmanuel International  Richard  and Pam McGowan who also are both members of the Uxbridge Rotary Club.
Announcements:
Basil was pleased to announce that Donna Salamalay has agreed to be President elect 2018-19. (Much applause was heard from the members present and an audible sigh from Basil!)
Gerd announced an International Group meeting for next week  after our noon hour meeting.
Gerd also reported that Roland had made some very significant suggestions for the Board to consider:
  1.    He believes that the POD system needs review because sometimes it just doesn’t seem to work well.
  2.    Fines should be designated for a specific charity so that we can see where that money is going and as an incentive to members to boost their fines.  (Whither the $100 free pass?)
  3.    Polio Plus should be reviewed and followed up as a commitment of Rotary International and our club.
Sergeant at Arms: Jim Boyko
            Jim was happy to put some happy bucks into the binfor his 8 day vacation in Puerto  Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico.  He described it as a very classy place, golf course, warm breezes, gated community and a great way to get away from the “rat race”.
 
Gerd was happy to have survived a fall during one of his hikes with his mountain dog.  But he did slip down the side of a cliff which resulted in a bruised leg ... right where his dog likes to lean to show his unbounded affection. Man’s best friend ... sometimes.
 
Basil the winner of the $5.00 consolation prize was happy to still be our club’s leader and happy to have now filled the President-elect slot for 2018-2019.
 
Arthur was in Aruba with his kids and they encountered the only boa constrictor that the locals have ever seen.
 
Program:
Gordon Brown introduced Richard and Pam McGowan from Emmanuel International Canada.
 
Richard was an entrepreneur in his past life until he joined EIC in 2008 when he was asked to take over the reigns of the organization.  He agreed to a one year stint at a salary of $1 per year but after 7 years he still is Executive Director with no raise and no plans to retire.  Both Richard and Pam are members of the Springvale Baptist Church, the Uxbridge Rotary Club and he is the past Chairperson for the Canadian Christian Relief and Development Association (CCRDA). Richard is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Award and both he and Pam are Paul Harris Fellows.
 
His talk explained that EIC serves in 7 countries around the world as well as their donor countries Australia, Canada, US and England.  It’s current focus is a Maternal Health program in Malawi.  It is a Canadian government initiated project called the MNCH project “The Promise” (a promise worth keeping). In the Malawi project (over the next 4 years) that serve two areas each about the size of Toronto and Mississauga. Three Canadians and 250 locals are employed in this project.  These cover 13 Districts and 6 health care centres. Their target is 27,000 beneficiaries (women and young children) but reaching out to 250,000 of the Malawi population.  His presentation included pictures of a typical health care centre showing the long lineup on that day of hundreds waiting to see and be seen by a single health care professional. The women bring their blankets with them and use the large floor area to stay overnight. There is also a need for incinerators and ambulances. (Two of the latter serving these two areas are either broken down or unable to afford gasoline to make operative.) So E.I.C. has developed a tricycle with an attached sidecar that can be used to pickup and transport patients to a health care centre (yes, over bumpy roads) but that is an improvement over walking. Today 574 women per 100,000 die of maternal complications during childbirth. Their target is to reduce that by 10 to 15%.  And of 1.000 live births 64 die before the age of five. This they hope to reduce that by 50% or 30-40 deaths for 1,000 live births. Another target is to increase the number of heath care centers that meet the basic minimum standards for care from one today so that all six centers will meet or exceed the minimum standards. Richard explained the process that they used for establishing the base-line which included interviews and focus groups.  Evaluations will take place mid-term and at the end of the 4 year program, in 2020, to see if their targets are being met. Interviews will focus on nutritional practices for pregnant women and children under 5. Their interviews found that knowledge of sound nutritional practices for pregnant women and children under five was zero.  They hope to see that knowledge level increased to at least 80% and the men’s to 70% through their educational programs.  That also includes the males to “buy into” the need to use all the basic 6 food groups for improved health of the mothers and their children. A total of 24 ambu-bikes will be built with the help of an Uxbridge firm and a co-op system is being developed to assist the (mostly) women to develop small businesses and pool their resources to pay back these micro loans. One feature of Malawi life is that the women don’t trust their men, especially husbands, with their money!
 
Richard wound up his presentation with an invitation for any of our club to join members of the Uxbridge club and others in the Toronto District to participate in a “sweat equity” team that has gone to Malawi in the past and another going this year to Haiti building or adding to schools during a 10 day period working visit.  March 28 a group of 8 or 9 will be leaving for Haiti.
 
Richard invited our club to consider a $1,500 commitment over a 4 year period.  This would generate total funds of $10,000 for their Promise Program Campaign. This would help bring health to 304 villages impacting over 250,000 people providing improvements to 6 health centres.
 
Frank Allison thanked Richard and Pam for their excellent program and the scope Emmanuel International’s projects to reduce maternal and child mortality impacting over 250,000 people in Malawi. He presented a certificate which acknowledged that a man in India had his vision restored as a thank you gift on behalf of Richard and Pam’s presentation.                                                                                                                              
 
The EIC slide presentation can be accessed through this link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ry8z2gtgq7jq3li/Emmanuel%20International%20Canada%20Rotary%20Presentations.pptx?dl=0
 
Richard’s talk can be heard through this link. (Unfortunately the background noise has come from a meeting in an adjoining room).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z6yz5qzyl5blgoe/Emmanuel%20International.MP3?dl=0
 
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