Guest Speakers from RC of Portland Bay

Karen and Margaret, who have recently returned from another visit to Nepal, addressed members of the Port Fairy Rotary Club and other guests at their dinner meeting on 19th August.

The Nepal initiative is part of a Rotary RAWCS program which targets to reduce the level of poverty in western Nepal by raising the education level of children.  To do this, the Rotary program specifically aims to improve teacher skills by conducting more formal training programs.  As recently up to 2009, teachers at schools in Western Nepal were little more than volunteers who may have only been educated to Year 10 level. So, by focusing on teacher training the skills of teachers will steadily improve, school can become a more enjoyable experience for students and this will ultimately raise their level of self-esteem.

The highly structured teacher program starts by surveying teachers before the formal training begins as well as conducting a 2-day orientation program that also involves parents of students.  A similar program in Eastern Nepal, sponsored by the Australia - Himalaya Foundation, has seen some 1500 teachers trained with a reach to over 50,000 students.

The Rotary Club of Portland Bay has become involved in the program over the past three years and has become a fostering club of the Nepal teacher training program.  After three years, the first program of teacher training in Pauder (in the Myagdi District  of Nepal), is now concluding with 40 new teachers about to graduate.  Planning for a new program is underway and will start in January 2014. 

Karen, along with Margaret, who is a teacher in Portland, will be travelling to Nepal again soon and are now launching a fundraising program to buy books for students.  The fundraising, to raise $500, concentrates on 50 cent donations as this is what it takes to purchase a child's story book in Nepal.  It is much cheaper to purchase books through a local program in Kathmandu and pay porters to carry them up the mountains to remote schools, as overseas transport costs are prohibitive if book are sourced from overseas. Furthermore, the books purchased in Nepal for school children are bi-lingual, including English.

Karen and Margaret (pictured here - L to R) also highlighted that it takes only $1 per day ($365 pa) to train a teacher in Nepal and therefore the Club is also seeking sponsors for teachers in the 2014 program.  They are also happy to have other Rotarians join them on the next RAWCS  trip to Nepal.

Karen and Margaret showed a host of photos from the region and highlighted the starkness of school classrooms before the teacher training program in comparison to photos depicted classrooms now adorned with lots of teaching aids and charts which all helps to make school a more enjoyable place for the students.

The Rotary Club of Port Fairy assisted the fundraiser by foregoing its usual fine session in favour of donations on the night going towards the book program.

Karen, and her husband, Kym Stock (who is a dentist in Portland and a member of the RC of Portland) are long-standing friends of Port Fairy Rotarian, John Clue, who introduced Karen and spoke of their early association in Portland and how Karen had gotten involved in Rotary and the Nepal program specifically.  He thanked both Karen and Margaret for their presentation and Kym for his attendance also.

For more information on the program contact:
Karen Stock 
Rotary Club of Portland Bay
M: 0417 501 452  E: karen.k877@gmail.com