International
The Rotary Club of St. Catharines Lakeshore has, and continues to, support a wide variety of projects internationally . Here is just a sampling of articles on some of our projects:
Nepal- Natal Community Schools Project
The Rotary Club of St. Catharines Lakeshore has been supported in conjunction with Rotary Club of Huntsville. This project will provide support infrastructure for water, sanitation and buildings at two marginalized schools in Nepal. Combining financial assistance with a hands-on on-site component, a Rotarian team will be in Nepal working on the project in the spring of 2021.
Creating Opportunities for
Guatemala Garden Project
Most vegetables in Guatemala are grown by large companies, who export much of it. Originally presented to the Club in October 2018, this nutritional program provides families with much needed vegetables via a community garden in San Antonio Aguas Calientes.
The Giving Bowl (formerly Ryan’s Bowl)
When you give a child a chance to obtain a proper education and access to food each day that child will be able to do great things for their family and community! The Giving Bowl (formerly Ryan’s Bowl) provides support for families in the small villages of Uganda ensuring children can be fed, go to school and receive medical attention when required.
A core charity for the Club for many years, Ryan’s Bowl founder, Ken Walsh, went on a trip to Uganda with a non-profit organization in 2006. Seeing first-hand the poverty of the area and sad condition of the children he knew he personally had to do something. What initially started out as sending money to feed and care for five children, quickly grew into the organization it is today. This past year, Ryan’s Bowl fed 1,185 students, medically helped over 15 cases, supplied books/pens to over 100 children and gave numerous girl hygiene products to keep them in school. With the passing of Ken Walsh in March 2019, Isabella Bujor took over the organization and as per Ken’s wishes the charity’s name has been changed to The Giving Bowl. Visit them online at www.ryansbowl.ca.
Project Peanut Butter Pakistan
Pakistan sadly loses around 2,250,000 children under age five to Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) every year. Working with other Rotary Clubs in North America and Pakistan, the Rotary Club of St. Catharines Lakeshore has been pleased to supply Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) to Pakistani children suffering with Moderate to Severe Acute Malnutrition (MAM and SAM). This effort has saved over 7000 lives over the past two years since its conception through their dispensing partner Aga Khan University hospital and continues to grow, becoming a powerful long term project.
Tabitha Foundation Canada
Tabitha Foundation Canada’s activities focus on lifting Cambodians out of poverty, by helping people to develop inherent skills and resources that foster self-sufficiency and independence.
Most families “graduate” from Tabitha programs within five to seven years. A daily life of hunger, discomfort and helplessness is changed forever into a busy existence where income is earned, children go to school, and health and well-being improves dramatically.
Cystinosis Research Foundation
Cystinosis is a rare, genetic disease that affects 1 in 100,000-200,000 live births in the United States and Canada. The Cystinosis Research Foundation is dedicated to finding better treatments to improve the quality of life for those with cystinosis and to ultimately find a cure for this devastating disease.
CRF issues research grants bi-annually to accelerate the research process at world-renowned institutions and to ensure that there is never a gap in funding new cutting-edge research ideas.
Studies have included muscle wasting, neurological issues, corneal cystinosis, kidney disease as well as stem cell and gene therapy treatments. The foundation has been very successful with their transplant projects. The first stem cell treatments began in October 2019 with the first transplant completed in June 2020, followed by two more in 2020.
ShelterBox Canada
Having somewhere dry and warm to sleep, to prepare meals and be with your family is vital for starting the long process of rebuilding your life. Emergency shelter offers privacy and helps to preserve your dignity. It offers protection from the elements, animals and disease. It helps keep communities together. It can help to bring back a sense of normality, allowing children to go back to school.
ShelterBox teams work with disaster-hit families around the world, offering emergency shelter and other essential items to support them in rebuilding their lives. The Club is pleased to support this international disaster relief charity, specializing in providing emergency shelter, warmth and dignity following over 80 disasters in more than 52 countries since 2001. Each ShelterBox provides an extended family of up to 10 people with a tent and life-saving equipment while they are displaced or homeless.
Our club supports the Rotary Polio Plus Campaign, dedicated to wiping out Polio worldwide.
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a paralyzing and potentially deadly infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of 5. The virus spreads from person to person, typically through contaminated water. It can then attack the nervous system. Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years. Our goal of ridding the world of this disease is closer than ever. As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we've reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979.
Rotary members have contributed more than $2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to protect nearly 3 billion children in 122 countries from this paralyzing disease. Rotary’s advocacy efforts have played a role in decisions by governments to contribute more than $10 billion to the effort. Today, polio remains endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But it’s crucial to continue working to keep other countries polio-free. If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.
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