In the first week of December, 2019 Doncaster Club members Leon Moore, Brian Talbot, Pat Armstrong, Tony Murray and David Grieve helped select and load medical equipment and consumables plus second hand children’s books into a 20’ container at the DIK (Donations in Kind) warehouse in West Footscray destined for Zimbabwe. We were ably assisted by Di Gillies from RC of Balwyn and Lawrie Fraser and Bob Glindemann from Rotary DIK Warehouse.
The medical supplies were for a newly constructed rural medical clinic at Gambo, a rural area south of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (near a town called Plumtree) and the books were for a library in a community centre in Bulawayo. The community centre is where the AIDS orphans meet each week to do their homework, engage in cultural and social activities and read library books in a safe environment. The new medical clinic was financed by a Global Grant initiated by the Rotary Club of Borken in Germany and this included training nurses in Germany.
Doncaster Club received a District Grant to assist in the cost of transporting the container and membership of the DIK Warehouse and the Rotary Club of Alresford in England is paying for the land freight component once it reaches Bulawayo. The container will be loaded on a ship on Tuesday, 10th December, 2019, transshipped via Colombo in Sri Lanka, off loaded in Durban in South Africa for travel by rail to Bulawayo via Botswana. We expect the container to arrive in 6 weeks, ready for the opening of the clinic in late January 2020. The project is being managed by the Rotary Club of Plumtree and Rotary Club of Bulawayo South, the club who manages the Doncaster Club’s Bulawayo Orphan’s Education (BOE) project.
Doncaster Club President Niranjan Ramjee who immigrated from Bulawayo in 2001, was quoted as saying: “This is a great example of the power of Rotary with five Rotary Clubs from four different countries coming together to truly make a positive difference to others’ lives who are less fortunate than ourselves.”
David Grieve
RC Doncaster
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