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Stories
RCNS Bulletin Rising Out Of The Ashes
Posted by Danny Cassidy on Feb 03, 2023
 
Attendance: 14 members
Visitors: 1,
Dave Lockhard from PACT
 
Chair: President Courtney
 
Anthem: Peter
Toast to King, Canada, and Rotary by President Courtney
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cairo, Egypt: A Local's Guide To Some Underrated Sights - Three ...
 
Dhanni introduced Navine Yassa, a member of the Rotary Club of Scarborough since 1999
Her passion is working with the International Group, where she was involved in various Global Grants between the Rotary Club of Scarborough and various districts worldwide.
           Navine was instrumental in establishing the Canadian charity ROOTA (Rising Out Of The Ashes), whose main objective is to elevate poverty and enhance education in a marginalized community of trash collectors in Egypt called the Zabaleen. A project our club has been supporting since 2018. Navines first contact with Rotary was through ROTARACT in Cairo, Egypt, where she translated the Rotaract constitution from English to Arabic, published and distributed in the Middle East in 1983. 
           Outside of Rotary, Navine obtained a degree in English literature from the University of Alexandria and another in simultaneous translation from the American University in Cairo. In addition, Navine's extensive work as a fashion coordinator with the wool house in Egypt allowed her to travel worldwide, attending fashion shows. This allowed her to share her knowledge with the Egyptian private and public sectors.
Navine first showed us two videos of interviews with Zabaleen people benefiting from ROOTA. 
She explained the design of the logo. The colors; are yellow for happiness, brown for earth, and green for new beginnings. The Zabaleen came from southern Egypt. They were evicted at least eight times along the way but ended up settling in the hills in a Suburb of Cairo. ROOTA's mission is to help with education and revenue-generating projects. The children are malnourished, and ROOTA is helping provide proper meals for them. The boys mainly sift through the garbage and, in doing so, can get sick. ROOTA is now providing them with gloves which are helping. Navine mentioned that we have helped over the years, and she wanted to show us the impact our help is providing. They are offering the condensed literacy program, which Rotary initially presented in 1983. she showed us the diplomas women have earned, which enables them to continue in higher studies. ROOTA is sponsoring them. Some of the women are attending university. The women are now working with looms, using fabric factories have donated. Sixty-eight women are working in glass recycling, using furnaces donated by Rotary clubs, ourselves included. Included with the furnaces were five hundred to help the children with their education.
In the recycling project, the men go out at 2 am to sift through the garbage, which is then given to the women to sort. Education for the boys suffers because they would rather be working to help out. These are people that we help to help themselves.
 
The link to the videos Navine presented is here:   https://www.dropbox.com/s/8eip9h76p02wahx/Zabaleen.mp4?dl=0
 
 
Announcements:
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Challenges in North Scarborough

Rotateller for Wednesday September 7, 2022

Chair: President Courtney Fisher

Toast to the Queen, Canada and Rotary: Led by President Courtney

Anthem: Frank Allison

Attendance: 8 members were in attendance plus Basil’s guest Dorothy Evans.

No other guests other than the speaker and no members on Zoom.

President Courtney opened the meeting with a toast to The Queen, Canada and Rotary.

Speaker:

Our speaker this week was introduced by Barry - John Stapleton was assisted by his colleague Yvonne Yuen a Policy Analyst – they were both attending via Zoom. John Stapleton is a writer, instructor and a former Innovation Fellow with the Metcalf Foundation. John worked for the Ontario Government for 28 years in the areas of social assistance policy and operations and was Research Director for the Task Force on Modernizing Income Security for Working-Age Adults in Toronto. John teaches on public policy for community advocates and is extensively published in local and national media.

John showed us several graphics showing income inequality in different areas of the City of Toronto. In 1980 Scarborough was very much a middle-income area. In 2015 which is the last ‘full’ census prior to Covid the illustration shows poverty in the north of Scarborough and southern Markham. In the 2020 census (which isn’t fully complete yet) it shows a reduction in the poverty areas of northern Scarborough moved from ‘very low’ to ‘low’. This was taken in May 2020 when some of the Government’s Covid benefits were paid out, these stopped at the end of 2021.

Link to recording:  audio1042031839.m4a

Link to John’s website: https://openpolicyontario.com/

Courtney thanked John for his presentation.

Announcements:

  • Barry reminded us about the Foundation Walk and to make pledges if they hadn’t already done so and to send the funds to Dhanni.

  • Rocco announced there will be a Club Service Group meeting next Monday 12th probably at Southsides.

  • Barry announced there will be a Community Services Group meeting next Tuesday 13th at Remezzo’s.

  Sergeant at Arms

Frank Allison was SAA this week and said he was not going to fine anyone so just asked for Happy Bucks.

  • Barry was happy that when he and Glennys went Remezzo’s a lot of people were so nice to Glennys as she was ‘hobbling around on a broken ankle’. Barry tried to gain our sympathy (unsuccessfully) as while Glennys was incapacitated he had to do cleaning cooking etc!

  • Arthur enjoyed his drive up north to Temiskaming.

  • Basil reminded us that the ‘Presidential Pardon’ cards are available. (These are cards that can be purchased for $100 for a year, so that if you get fined by the SAA you can show the card and don’t have to pay the fine.)

 

President Courtney then closed the meeting.
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