International

International Committee Update 

The International Committee looks to fund projects for people in need beyond our shores 

Indonesia:-   We continue to support a cleft lip/palate project co-ordinated by a Rotary Club in Bali, Indonesia - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwzc4AJbJY0 

Sri Lanka:-   A project in which 3D technology will be used to produce prosthetic limbs for victims of mine explosions 

Africa and South East Asia:-   We continue to work with Care International’s ‘Lend with Care’ - providing a few hundred pounds of pump-priming money on loan to individual or small groups of entrepreneurs in developing countries – with the emphasis on women in Africa and south-east Asia. 

Worldwide:-   Most significant of all is the Water Survival Box registered charity established by members of the Chelwood Bridge Rotary Club. This has provided vital humanitarian aid to more than 150,000 survivors of natural or manmade disasters in some 37 countries since 2006. See www.watersurvivalbox.org 

Committee members meet once a month before the Tuesday meeting to consider worthwhile projects for the club to support in the upcoming rotary year and to monitor those projects for which funding support has previously been agreed. The other important role of the committee is to organise fund-raising projects that will pay for new projects. This is often the fun part of the committee's role as most fund-raising projects offer us the opportunity to socialise within the local community. 
In recent years the Committee has provided funding support for: Clean Water systems for Schools and communities (Africa and the South-east Asia); Mobile Medical and Dental Clinic for street children (Indonesia); Lap Desks to assist children’s education (South Africa); and the Wheelchair Foundation (India).
Other projects include; Management development opportunities for young people (Mozambique); providing small business loans to people in developing countries (Africa, South America, and South East Asia), and, in partnership with World Vision, supporting individual girls in Malawi and Uganda through the early years of their lives.

In 2023-2024:

• we continue to support a cleft lip/palate project co-ordinated by a Rotary Club in Bali, Indonesia (see - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pwzc4AJbJY0 ). During a two-year period this project will provide life-enhancing surgery to correct this abnormality in some 200 children. 

• in partnership with Rotary Clubs in Sri Lanka, Canada and the United States a project in which 3D technology will be used to produce prosthetic limbs for victims of mine explosions - left over from the 30-year civil war (Sri Lanka). 

• we continue to work with Care International’s ‘Lend with Care’ - providing a few hundred pounds of pump-priming money on loan to individual or small groups of entrepreneurs in developing countries – with the emphasis on women in Africa and south-east Asia. As loans are repaid we reinvest in new requests for help – in this way the original funds have been recycled many times and benefitted more and more people.

• most significant of all is the Water Survival Box registered charity we set up in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami and which has provided vital humanitarian aid to more than 150,000 survivors of natural or manmade disasters since 2006. To date we have responded to more than 75 disasters in some 37 different countries in Africa, the Caribbean, Europe (notably in 2022 Ukraine), the Indian sub-continent, the Middle East, South America, and South-east Asia. Since 2016 we have been supported by a sister Rotary charity set up in Switzerland and by a new Rotary project group in Denmark. Full details can be found at our website: www.watersurvivalbox.org