Rotarians in Haenertsburg flourish during Covid
Despite a difficult year where a worldwide pandemic changed life to its core, the Haenertsburg Rotary Club has flourished.
Overcoming challenges and doing things online, opened a new world to members of the club, said Deneys Barry, outgoing president of the club.
“Being people who always “make a plan”, we continued to hold club meetings, thanks to our new best friend, Zoom. We formed a strategic plan using the guides provided by the MyRotary e-Learning platform, which included a member satisfaction survey.
We arrived at the conclusion that our immediate goal was to ensure that the club survives the pandemic intact and that we use this period to plan for when we could resume community service projects and fundraising,” Barry told the Herald.
To stimulate the interest of their members and attract that of prospective members, they invited speakers on interesting and diverse topics to address the club, all done online.
Barry said they also trained their new members.
Also read: Active Haenertsburg Rotary leads the way
“Membership commenced at 24 last year. Unfortunately, we lost three but very fortunately, gained seven new members. Rotary International is a highly organised and experienced institution with excellent administrative aids and material resources – particularly The Rotary Foundation,” Barry said.
The new members are Deon Steyn of Magoebaskloof Hotel who joined in September and Nkhensani Ngomane from Nkowankowa in January.
“And then, amazingly, all inducted in one mad March meeting, were Pinkie Maponya from Lenyenye, Shaun Mhlongo from Dan, Antoinette Ramaphoko from Tzaneen and Betty Ramaselela from Haenertsburg. And to round the number up to 28, Wim van Zyl of Haenertsburg joined us in April.”
One of the club’s major projects that have just been launched and is funded by a Rotary Foundation Global Grant is aimed at improving the menstrual health of schoolgirls in rural Limpopo by the introduction of, and access to, washable, reusable sanitary kits. “Apart from promoting the use of and making available 10 000 sanitary kits, the project will provide 25 candidates with seamstress training in fabrics, design in sewing as well as entrepreneurial skills from the Junior Achievement (JA) curriculum. Twenty-three of the selected trainees are drawn from Nwamitwa, Subiaco, Nobody, Mokopane and Mashashane and two are from Gauteng.
“Training will be done at the Blessman International training centre near Mokopane by Blessman and JA South Africa. Rotary will manage the project and be involved with the distribution. The value of the Global Grant is R1.97m,” Barry said.
The club will be resuming its fundraising activities and is planning to stage non-contact events for the Iron Crown Trail Run in July, the Magoebaskloof Plunge Marathon from Haenertsburg to Tzaneen in November and the Ebenezer Mile Open-water Swim in March 2022.
What else did they achieve?
• 15 ECD practitioners were trained at Thusanang.
• They established reading/ lending libraries at Thabakgone Primary, Mahlanhle Primary and Mathukane Secondary schools.
•Continued their support of the Haenertsburg feeding scheme where food parcels are delivered to destitute households in the surrounding communities.
• Working with the Makgeng community to retain the natural beauty of the little valley from Segwasi to Boyne by establishing 5km and 10km hiking trails.
• Assisting the landlord to renovate the 120-year-old Rotary clubhouse in Haenertsburg.
