Donald
Teuma-Castelletti
BRISTOL July 10, 2017
The Shawville Rotary Club hosted two Eganville chapter members at a dinner Monday evening, so that the couple could show the club how their donations have helped a small healthcare centre in Nairobi.
Held at the Coronation Hall in Bristol, the club gathered for their weekly meeting to hear Alan and Mona Fox speak about the Imara Healthcare Centre and the initiatives supported by their donation from last year.
Located in the Mukuru region, the Imara Healthcare Centre was initially a worn-down, one-story building within the slums of the area. Back in 2011, when the Foxes first arrived, they became obsessed with finding a way to help the cause.
“We were very impressed with what they were trying to do and went home to raise money for it,” said Alan.
Joining the Eganville chapter in 2012, Alan said they sought out to join the Rotary Club because of their charitable status. When the members donate to the cause, they can receive a tax receipt.
The Shawville chapter donated $1,000 last year towards the Imara Healthcare Centre, and when combined with donations from chapters such as Arnprior, Renfrew, Pembroke, Petawawa and Eganville, as well as elsewhere, it afforded Imara a world of difference.
With those donations, Imara grows closer to developing their operating room. Imara now has proper birthing equipment in the form of an operating table and anaesthesia machine.
Alan and Mona had just recently returned from a 12-day trip to the centre, where they were hosted by a member of a local Rotary Club near the centre. In Mukuru, they helped see the operating equipment delivered and set-up, as well as hosting an official ribbon cutting ceremony.
The couple also had for sale a wide selection of jewellery from the Dorcas Beads initiative, which is a group of women who’ve lost their husbands to HIV/AIDS, now supporting themselves through recycling old plastic.
Mona said that any profits raised off the beads would go right back into supporting Imara.
At the end of their presentation, Alan highlighted what’s possible when the many groups work together to fund a singular project.
“A club on its own with $1,000 to put into a project doesn’t go very far,” he said, continuing that the clubs’ donations pooled together, can go a lot further.
