International Women's Day

The Rotary Club of Dunbar hosted a brunch on Sunday 5th March as part of the celebration for International Women's Day. The Keynote speaker was Sarah Brown.

From left to right : Elaine O'Brien; District Governor Olive Geddes; Bob McKinnon; Sarah Brown; David Arnott; Lindsay Craig; Vennetta Evans
From left to right : Elaine O'Brien; District Governor Olive Geddes; Bob McKinnon; Sarah Brown; David Arnott; Lindsay Craig; Vennetta Evans

Sarah Brown is a passionate advocate for global education and health issues and her work brings together the worlds of business, philanthropy, social media and charity campaigning..
She is the Founder and President of the children’s charity Theirworld and Executive Chair of the Global Business Coalition for Education. At Theirworld, Sarah created of A World At School, a global movement to get children across the world into education with hundreds of organisations working together on this shared goal.
Sarah went on to tell the very moving story that has been in the press in the last week When Catherine Smith's daughter Ella was born prematurely at 28 weeks, she feared the worst would happen.
Ella weighed just 1lb 10oz (737g) and was about the size of an adult's hand. For weeks she was kept in an incubator.
Catherine, the daughter of ex-Labour leader John Smith, said she knew little about premature babies at the time and didn't really think there was much chance of survival.
But Ella survived - thanks to a research centre set up by Gordon and Sarah after the couple's 10-day-old baby, Jennifer, died in 2002.
Following the death, the Browns founded the charity PiggyBankKids - now known as TheirWorld - in memory of their daughter.
And in 2004, the charity established the Jennifer Brown Research Laboratory (JBRL) at the University of Edinburgh.
The JBRL looked at ways to help premature babies thrive, including research into how much oxygen should be given to babies in incubators.
It was this research that was to prove absolutely crucial to the survival of Ella 15 years later.
Catherine's father had been one of the former prime minister's closest political allies.
She became aware of the link between the Browns' charity and her own daughter after Ella started to pull through.
Sarah went on to talk about the fantastic work she has personally witnessed being done by Rotarians around the World and that she had talked with Rotary International in Evanston about the global movement to get children across the world into education.
The audience were left in no doubt that they had listened to a truly inspiring speaker and gave her a rapturous applause.  The Rotary Club of Dunbar presented Ms Brown with a cheque for £1000

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From left to right : Elaine O'Brien; District Governor Olive Geddes; Bob McKinnon; Sarah Brown; David Arnott; Lindsay Craig; Vennetta Evans

Some 2013-21 Highlights

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