The Rotary Club of Bali - Seminyak (RCBS) first met Claude when he gave us a presentation during our Club's weekly meeting. We felt that the ideals and goals The Sumba Foundation employs, are in tune with the principles of Rotary and our members are unanimous in their support of Claude and his wife Petra who have already achieved so much over the years through their unselfish deeds using The Sumba Foundation to help change the lives of those less fortunate.
After several meetings, it became clear to us that the people of Sumba deserved our assistance to help them overcome the innumerable challenges ahead. I am certain that you can appreciate that these responsibilities are too numerous for our small Club to be able to confront effectively, therefore we are focusing our efforts in a step by step approach.
Our first goal is to help prevent the spread of malaria on a village by village basis by providing funding for mosquito nets.
The program is called "Adopt a Village" and RCBS has agreed to work closely with and support The Sumba Foundation to eradicate malaria in one small village on Sumba. The sheer scale of the project cannot be overstated and RCBS cannot hope to adopt every village on the island alone.
As such, we joined forces with the Rotay Club Bali Nusa Dua (RCBND) to host a Rotary Christmas Dinner for the benefit of Sumba. The event was open to the public, to share the spirit of Rotary and raise awareness of the plight of the Sumbanese people. Together we were able to raise almost US$3,000 - to purchase specially treated mosquito nets and medicines.
Several members of RDBND and RCBS, including two past presidents visited Sumba in 2005 to assess the situation and additional information is available on our Club's website - www.rotaryseminyak.org.
We encourage other Rotary Clubs interested to join us in this worthwhile endeavour and "Adopt a Village" to contact us via email at president@rotaryseminyak.org.
Yours in Rotary
Mark Savage President Rotary Club Bali Seminyak