|
Jenny Acopian was our chair for the evening’s Zoom meeting. Gary Newton was in charge of the tech side of things and, as The Muting Master, was run off his sheet with a long list of guests including Ruby, who is our Club’s nominee for the Rotary Peace Fellow program and is currently assisting refugees and asylum seekers in Melbourne, Past District Governor Jane Cox from the Rotary Club of Geelong Central and a member of the Board of Australian Rotary Health and Rotarian Anne Acuna all the way from The Philippines with whose club (Rotary Club of Makati Lumina) Alison from our Club spent time working on one of their environmental projects. It was great to see Jonathan Hepner Zooming in for President Yannick’s first meeting as Our Glorious Leader. Michael Carroll continues to appear in a yellowish sulphur-like haze.....Is there a spot available in the program for a Zoom exorcism? Comment: Perhaps it is The Social Distanced Bulletin Editor's jaundiced view of the world? We sent our best wishes to Alan Hoyle, Stan Deans, Alan Backwell and Bill Bailey. Our guest speaker - Shahnaz Rind Shahnaz is our very own Indigenous Health Scholar and is currently studying Optometry at Deakin University Waurn Ponds. She has a Nursing degree from Deakin that she also gained with the help of an Indigenous Scholarship. Shahnaz decided to study Optometry in the hope of helping her people improve their eye health. Statistics show that older Indigenous Australians are almost three times as likely to suffer from vison impairment or blindness than older non-Indigenous Australians. However, there are only 13 Indigenous optometrists in Australia and one Indigenous ophthalmologist, and this makes it hard for Indigenous people to find a culturally safe place to go to for regular eye assessments. During her presentation Shahnaz emphasized the critical importance of providing culturally safe places for Indigenous people, staffed by indigenous professionals. The link below shows all those who have scholarships through the indigenous health program of Australian Rotary Health (ARH) by State. Apart from Shahnaz, you will see Nikaela Genio who we sponsored last year. We wish Shahnaz every success in her studies and in continuing to promote good health in our Indigenous Australians.
|
