I am pleased to share the following status of the Rotary-Swinburne mentoring program.
- To date three formal and one end of semester mentoring sessions have successfully been conducted for 15 mature foreign students, many of them having tertiary qualifications form overseas. They are attending Swinburne courses to improve their English with aim to be accepted for other tertiary studies, gain professional employment and/or start a business in Australia.
- The students come from a variety of countries and circumstances and have quite different outlook, ambitions and vocational perspectives.
- 5 Rotarians ( Anne Scott, Di Gilles, Ian Bentley, Michael Hills, myself ) + two community representatives ( Andreas Sederof - Architect/Engineer/small businessman and Colin Hackett - Industrial Chemist/Businessman) have been the mentors.
- The last session took place this Tuesday with a celebration where the students where responsible for the organisation; inclu
ding the catering which was superbly representing many different culinary favorites and much enjoyed by everyone.
ding the catering which was superbly representing many different culinary favorites and much enjoyed by everyone. - The feedback at present is encouraging from the students, mentors and the Swinburne teachers. All seeing value in the mentoring continuing.
- The students and teachers now have a two week break and the plan is then to have a series of discussions to explore and recommend how we in collaboration can transform the pilot into a longer term and perhaps an extension in scope and number of students and Rotarians.
- Considering the unique profile of Rotarians and their basic belief in the value of youth support its my conviction there is a natural value proposition which can and ought to be realised through an initial commitment by a few Rotary clubs.
But it wouldn’t be Rotary without a raffle, and those on a certain table are sure to be fined heavily at the next Sergeant’s session.
Stokes went on to describe some RAGAS Programs to raise awareness of slavery, and how kidnapping and rape were used to control the slaves. A program “Creating better futures” for children in the Karen villages of Myanmar is introducing training to protect children.
sit a lot of Rotary projects and go to the DG's home town of Tumkur to see more projects. The plan was immediately abandoned due to a strike and concerns that it could get really ugly so we were confined to the hotel until mid-afternoon. Fortunately there was a Palace nearby (home to a Rajah in years gone by), which we could reach without too much exposure to the possible mobs. These days it mainly hosts lavish weddings where there may be several thousand guests. We were taken around on a private tour and enjoyed our release from hotel detention.
