Previous projects

Past project: Learn From the Experts

A 3-Part Webinar Series - Helping Ireland get back on its feet Post-COVID19

With the impact of Covid-19, Rotary Ireland is conscious of supporting individuals and businesses across the country. In particular we want to assist, in some way, in re-energising the leaders of small and medium sized businesses and those that were unfortunate enough to have lost their jobs. This 3 Part Webinar Series is aimed at those changing career, as well as business owners and leaders looking to hear how to best reset and grow their business post Covid-19.

We are working with two leading expert organisations in these fields on the Island of Ireland:
1. Brightwater Recruitment. Winners of Best Large Recruitment Agency in Ireland 2019
2. Mentors, Ireland's foremost professional mentoring company for business leaders.

Past project: Irish Children's Arthritis Network

The Irish Children's Arthritis Network (ICAN) are working to build a new dedicated JIA Unit at Crumlin Children's Hospital in the hopes of reducing waiting times and improving treatment.

What is Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis?

Juvenile means arthritis began before you were 16 years old. Idiopathic means that the cause is not known. Arthritis means one or more of your joints is hot to touch and inflamed.

Parenting a child with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis can be a rollercoaster. iCAN has a very active support network of parents – indeed iCAN was started by parents looking to support each other through the ups and downs of JIA

Past project: Daisy Lodge - The Cancer Fund For Children

The Cancer Fund for Children runs Daisy Lodge, a purpose built, therapeutic short break centre for families in Ireland nursing a child with cancer. There is currently no playground for the children to enjoy. As the charity does not receive Government funding, Rotary Ireland was delighted to support ‘The Daisy Project’ by pledging to raise the money to help install the play equipment and safety surface for the vital therapeutic play area at Daisy Lodge.

Past project: Bhaktapur Rotary, Nepal, House Building Program

On Saturday 25th of April, the people of Nepal experienced a massive earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale and the countryside of Nepal swayed treacherously as the earth trembled violently and many fell, burying with them the men, women and children inside. In a country, plagued with poverty, lack of infrastructure and services – there was nobody to call. Panic ensued as every able body dug desperately through the debris with their bare hands, hoping against hope that their buried loved ones were still alive.

In Bhaktapur, the city of devotees, ten miles east of Kathmandu the scene was chaotic. With international rescue efforts still firmly focused on Kathmandu, the people of Bhaktapur were still left largely unsupported and digging for their loved ones when the second earthquake struck just over two weeks later on the 12th of May, measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale. That’s where the Rotary Club of Bhaktapur stepped in.

Over 13,000 homes in Bhaktapur have been destroyed and the sizeable death toll unconfirmed. In the immediate haze of the crisis, the Rotary Club of Bhaktapur and its local members sprang into action to help the local people of Bhaktapur. Initially the Rotary Club established an emergency health camp in Bhaktapur Durbar Square. The health camp was staffed with five doctors and treated 266 earthquake victims. Most of the injuries involved broken bones, the administration of saline solution to the weak and free medicine was prescribed and distributed. As the emergency health camp program wound down, Rotarian attentions turned to the vast number of homeless in the city, accentuated in criticality by the fast approaching monsoon season and its unforgiving promise.

The Bhaktapur Rotary Club immediately established an emergency rehousing program, which these proud Rotarians continue to work tirelessly on today and will do well into the future until they achieve their vision; to establish homes for more than 500 families who find themselves homeless owing to the devastating earthquake.

Many houses have been successfully funded and built, mainly through Rotary Club support including donations from the Rotary Club of Dublin Fingal, Dublin Central and Limavady as well as other clubs around the country.         

Each home is twelve feet by nine feet but the average size of family being housed today in each is eight. The cost per house is RPS 55,000; the equivalent of €500. With the completion of these 10 houses and phase one, the Rotary Club now wish to progress to the second phase of this rehousing program. The second phase endeavours to house approximately 160 additional earthquake victims. In a recent gesture of solidarity, the Rotary Club of Kathmandu has offered to match donations for up to 25 shelters in Bhaktapur. On this basis, if the Bhaktapur Rotary Club raise sufficient funds for 25 shelters, the Kathmandu Rotary Club will fund an additional 25, resulting in 50 houses.

Past project: Rotary Ireland: Be a gift to Crumlin 

A project started by the Rotary Club of Monaghan and adopted by Rotary Clubs of Ireland including Dublin Central to renovate a Parents Accommodation Unit in the Our Lady's Children's Hospital. OLCHC is the largest paediatric hospital on the island of Ireland and provides services for children from both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The project funded the renovation of 48 bedrooms that are available for parents of sick children. The Arctic Challenge was a 2500km adventure to the Arctic Circle on vintage 50cc mopeds, the challenge funded replacement doors for the 48 bedrooms as part of the overall Rotary effort that funded the refurbishment. 

The project delivered €75k of direct funding in addition to the thousands of hours of voluntary service provided by Rotarians and friends of Rotary.

A short video giving the background story and showing the Unit before it was renovated by Rotarians.

A video made during the refurbishment showing the door replacement project.

Past project: Rotary  Jaipur Limb project 

The Rotary Jaipur Limb project was established in 1984 by the late Peter Betteridge from the Rotary Club of Godalming, RI District 1250, and his wife Jessamine, following a vist to the remarkable limb making workshops of Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS) at the Sawai Man Singh (SMS) hospital in Jaipur, India . They saw that no disabled person was ever turned away, coming as they did to the centre by any method of transport and often from great distances in India, and how all were treated free of charge. They also observed the huge support given to the centre by Jaipur Rotarians and members of Inner Wheel.

In 1988 support for the project extended beyond District 1250 and it was included in the RIBI International Projects Library for the first time. In 1990, Rotarians from Kingston-on Thames, D1130, financed the first permanent Rotary Jaipur Limb centre in Khammam.

In 1990 the concept of free limbs went international with the establishment of the first permanent Jaipur Limb Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, sponsored by D3140 and the Rotary Club of Bournemouth. In 1993 D1070 Governor Barry Hodgkinson went to Honduras to see the first Rotary Jaipur Limb centre established in Central America, and during the early 1990s limb camps were held in several African countries, as well as in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal.

The last few years have seen a remarkable shift in project support to both East and West Africa, whilst Indian Rotary clubs and the BMVSS centres at Jaipur and New Delhi have not been neglected.

The terrible earthquake in Haiti in January 2010 inspired Rotarians in RIBI to offer assistance to Caribbean Rotarians to establish a limb centre in that devastated country and to train new technicians to deal with the many who had lost a limb as a result of their injuries. This resulted in the RIBI setting up a fund to support what turned out to be the largest project ever undertaken by RJLP, eventually costing over US$500,000.