Rotary Corner: Innovation? It’s a piece of cake!

Sadly, our Disability Games had to be cancelled, a huge disappointment for all those looking forward to taking part.

Along with medals and trophies, 150 T-shirts for officials and contestants (kindly provided by Buckles) were no longer needed. Rotarians arranged for the T-shirts to be sent out the Lisa Kent Trust (a UK-based registered charity), dedicated to providing the children of The Gambia with the education they need for a brighter future. The children were delighted to have them.

Wishing to provide additional funding for the trust, Rotarian John Sadler (pictured with his grandson) decided to launch a Huntingdon Cromwell Bake Off. Rotarians and families were challenged to bake an orange polenta cake to a given recipe. Having paid an entry fee of £5 the cakes were proudly displayed at the club’s weekly Zoom meeting. A novel way of raising money, encouraging people to get in their kitchens to bake a delicious cake. John set a target of £120 (one year’s school fee for one student). With additional donations he has raised £150, the extra will buy text books.

The trust owns and manages two purpose-built schools providing education to over 600 children, providing all study materials and tools. This project is an example of Rotary’s new area of focus “Supporting the Environment” in action. Solar power pumps water from their own borehole and the school garden provides good food for the local community. They also encourage and help the community move away from using wood fires for cooking.

The trust links to schools in the UK that provide unwanted resources such as desks, chairs and books, recycled for use in the Gambian schools. UK primary school pupils link with Gambian children, gaining an understanding of life in a third world country. Being a Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award Activity provider creates opportunities for UK volunteers to work in the schools.

In Sierra Leone the David School (established by Ramsey Rotarian David Wallwork and his family) is continuing to thrive. The Sierra Leone government had suspended school public exams, but this has now changed. Thankfully, Covid 19 doesn’t appear to have spread widely in West Africa. There have been less than 2,000 recorded cases in Sierra Leone with less than 100 deaths.

Therefore, although the David School is not open at present for all pupils, classes for those taking exams started on 1st July. Masks are worn in class, hands washed before entering the classroom, and the children spread out as much as possible. Exams for primary pupils have already taken place, and those for secondary children to be held at the end this month.

The government’s School Supervisor has visited the school, and was very impressed with the arrangements and work being done. Extra classes have been run in the evenings. Congratulations go to one of the longest serving teachers, Marian Wartman, on the birth of her baby boy, Nehemiah David. Many of the teachers’ babies have been named after trustees of the David School!