Posted by Jean Jadevaia on Aug 06, 2020 |
Paramus Rotary Club Meeting of Thursday, July 30, 2020 This week a virtual meeting on Zoom where we met with Mike Wittry from Rotary of Roatan Honduras. Mike Wittry was a speaker at the Rotary Convention in Toronto in June 2018. He was also featured in Rotarian Magazine in November 2018. Additionally, he co-wrote the current Rotary Guide to Community Assessments and he is featured in that guide for Rotary Clubs developing Global Grants. He was originally a Rotarian in Wisconsin but now he has moved to Honduras and have been a Rotarian in Honduras for the past 8 years. He will be doing a presentation about a Rotary Global Grant that his club is attempting to put together to provide water to a community of about 750 people on Roatan Island, Honduras. The island of Roatan is located in the western Caribbean Sea, 30 miles off the north coast of Honduras. The community of Juticalpa is located in the Municipality of Santos Guardiola, Roatan Island, Honduras, 30 miles off the north coast of Honduras in the western Caribbean Sea. Juticalpa is an impoverished but very proud community. Today, the primary source of employment for families is tourism. Many work in the operational area of hotels (bar tender, waitresses, waiters, gardeners) and transporters. The second source of income is construction (bricklayers, carpenters, especially laborers or construction assistants) and the third source of income for families is fishing on boats. The community has an existing well, water storage tank and distribution system which serves 60% of the community on a limited basis. Water is pumped 1 day per week in the winter and 2 times per month in the summer. Families can store up to 130 gallons, but that is not enough. The water is contaminated and does not meet minimum health standards in Honduras. The monthly price of the service is $10 and 100% of the houses pay for water. It is projected that with the construction of a new water well, it would be possible to cover the remaining 40% of the homes and it would be possible to increase the number of liters per house throughout the community. Rotary can provide potable water to 100% of the homes in this community in a sustainable way. Mike Wittry is meeting with many Rotary clubs around the country to partner up and get this project done! "Whatever Rotary may mean to us, to the world it will be known by the results it achieves." - Paul Harris ************ Weekly Announcements! ~ Our next meeting will be held on held on Thursday August 6th at 12:15 PM at the Paramus Library Green. We will have a past scholarship recipient, Clare Donnelly, come talk to us about her college experience so far. ~ Our Board Meeting this month is August 18th! ********** |