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KINGSPARK NEWS Club Number: 30119 2005-06 Rotary Year : Issue 10 : 16 November | ||
| This
is the biweekly bulletin of the Rotary Club of Kingspark Hong Kong Club Website: http://www.rotary3450.org/kingspark-hongkong | ||
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| Chief
Editor : Francis Wann Club Webmaster : John Wan | ||
| Editorial
(The Begging Bowls) - By Francis Wann | ||
| District Website | RI Website | RI President | TRF | News Room | Global History Fellowship | ||
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The Begging Bowls
In response to questions on human rights, it's become something of a norm for Chinese leaders to claim that for them, having enough food to survive is what human rights is all about. It's somewhat perplexing that half a century has passed after the establishment of the Communist Party, they still claim that China is still at the first stage of socialism. It's difficult to gauge the levels of poverty in China as official figures are often not available. But as China prepares to enter the World Trade Organization, she would probably find that international politics is a much tougher game to play. World leaders would be quick to give human rights lectures to China, albeit diplomatically. And questions of market access, intellectual property rights, the US trade deficits, etc will be high on the agenda. Despite decades of huge economic growth, China remains in dire poverty. But China is not alone. According to a draft prepared by poverty expert Professor Peter Townsend this month, a fifth, or perhaps a quarter of the world's population are living in extreme poverty, and the measurement of the phenonenom, and especially of annual trends in the rates and severity of poverty, is not acceptably precise and consistent. The first Millennium Development Goal, a UN commitment to halve world poverty by 2015, has become an unlikely prospect. In 2002, Townsend published his research on population living below $1.08 per day at 1993. Over the years, poverty has been reduced by too little, if at all, and that a-dollar-a-day phenonenom is still very much with us. I am not sure what advice Professor Townsend would give to our administration, or whether our Government takes heed on his recommendations. But if official social policies are anything to go by, I would have thought there's little the Government has learnt. The official thinking towards combating poverty, as highlighted in current ecomomic orthodoxy, is that poverty can be tackled by accelerating existing development plans and capital works and infrastructures. This assumption was first initiated more than half a century ago, but its objective remains as elusive as ever. This also perpetuates the myth of the widening gap between the rich and the poor. For history has repeatedly told us that economic growth cannot eliminate poverty. What is needed is a change of Government policies. The change of heart, in the form of an international tax backed by law, would provide incentives and resources for a centralised UN investment programme to subsidise the world's most destitute population - the sick, the disabled, the elderly, and above all, the poorest children. Today, poverty in the US, the UK, Japan, Sweden, or Germany would have been two or three times what it is were it not for its redistributive tax and benefit programmes which account for 16-30 % of their GDP. Rotary has met poverty face to face on numerous occasions in the discharge of our services, but the irony is that when it comes to service - or charity - you can never do enough, and more often than not, we understand only too well that it's the official policy and attitude which is central to the cause of poverty. In an article published in today's SCMP, newly appointed executive councillor Anthony Cheung Bing-leung wondered why the more radical elements within Legco didn't band together to mount pressure on the government on social policies. He probably understands how difficult it is to have concensus from different factions on means and priorities. Poverty is still everywhere although the Commission on Poverty has already been in place for almost a year.(Demise of the Welfare Brigade, Anthony Cheung, SCMP, NOv 15, 2005) It may be easy for Cheung to sever his ties with the Democratic Party, but the problems of poverty and social policies aren't that easy to tackle. | ||
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President's
Column
Our club and the Rotary Club of Queensway were the host clubs for the District Rotary Foundation Seminar on 5th November, 2005. We had 12 members attending the Seminar. Thank you for all your support and particularly to PP Ted Ho and PP Peter Lo who have done a lot of work as one of the members of the organizing committee. The seminar was a success and in the wonderful closing remarks of the Regional Rotary Foundation Coordinator PDG Dens Shao he has classified the Seminar as Outstanding. We were impressed by how he has judged the success of the Seminar by the 4 elements of the quality of the Bordeaux red wine. For details please refer to his home page on http://www.rotary2000.org/PDG/pdg_home/05-08RRFC/Report/3450/3450.htm. In the Seminar our club received 2 recognition awards from The Rotary Foundation: 1) No.1 in district in the Highest Annual Programme Fund contribution for the 2004-2005 Rotary Year - US$48,175. 2) No.1 in district in the highest Per Capita Highest Annual Programme Fund contribution for the 2004-2005 Rotary Year - US$1,338. These 2 awards reflected the support from all the members to the Rotary Foundation in 2004-2005 when our IPDG Alexander was the Governor and again we must thank all the donors who have donated last year. Our PDG John who is also the Chairman of the Rotary Foundation Committee of our district also received the Citation for Meritorious Service award from The Rotary Foundation. This award is given to only one Rotarian in each district for his outstanding service in the year. Congratulations! CP John. We have been advised by the Vice Principal of Hawker College of Canberra that the selected exchange student for Hong Kong will not be able to go to Hong Kong in November 2005 due to health reasons and he cannot find a replacement for the student within such a short period. He continues to look for the same meaningful exchange in the following year and I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this programme. We have been advised by the Rotary Foundation Grants Sub-Committee that the joint application of our club and the RC of Zuunmod for District Simplified Grants ("DSG") of US$8,000 for the water pump project in Mongolia has been approved for US$4,000. I will work on the details of how and when we can complete this project with the RC of Zuunmod. As the Rotary Club of Canberra Sunrise and our club have worked on this project prior to our application for DSG we will ask them to contribute some funds to this project so that we will do the project in the name of 3 clubs in Mongolia. The same as what has been doing for the past several years, our last Board meeting has resolved that our club will donate HK$3,000 as scholarships to each of the 3 schools which we have sponsored their Interact Clubs in order to show our support to the schools. We have rescheduled our Thursday meeting on 24th November, 2005 to the evening at 7:00 p.m. and the venue will be at the Chinese Club. We have invited the Presidents of our 3 Interact Clubs and some of their Board members to meet us. We have also invited some Rotaractors from our sponsored Rotaract Club to present their "Little School Bags" project. Please join us to meet our leaders of our future. Our PP Edward and his organizing committee have been organizing our Christmas party and it will be held at the Hotel Miramar on 17th December, 2005 (Saturday) in the evening. The party will be organized by our club and our sponsored Rotaract Club and the details will be announced later. | ||
By IPP Thomas Chan Will You Be Remembered?
Fortunately, every member of our Club will be recognized in 100 years because I have put our Club's member list and banner in a time capsule when I attended the Centennial Conference in Chicago. When the time capsule is opened 100 years later, your contribution to our community and the world today will be recognized by our future generation. Talking about contribution. I would like to take this opportunity to thank for your donation, especially our major donors, to Rotary Foundation because your generous giving has made our Club being awarded the Top Contributor and Top Per Capita Contributor to the Annual Programs Fund during the 2004-2005 Rotary Centennial Year. Apart from extending my sincere thanks for your commitment to make our world different, I wish you will continue to support Rotary Foundation and donate generously in the future. Last but not least, I have visited our Rotary Information Centre with Rosa because last week was the Rotary Open Week. It was indeed a good opportunity to introduce Rotary to our friends because it has displayed a lot of information starting from the establishment of the first Rotary club in 1905. If you have missed it, please invite your friends to join our luncheon meetings because both our Past Presidents and me are eager to welcome new friends by telling them Rotary stories! | ||
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A First in the District
When I said I was happy to see so many of at the Seminar, I meant it. When I said that the audience represented the better people of the world, people with loving kindness who are interested to help others, who want to refine the art of loving and giving, and who want to share such good news to others, I meant every word I said. There are always generous people around, but we can have more, a lot more; and we need a lot more. One of the highlights of every Foundation Seminar is to recognize people's generosity. AT the last Seminar, we recognized a number of major donars and new Paul Harris Fellows. More interestingly, we launched the Paul Harris Society for the District. I would come back to this point later. I reminded my audience that our DG had announced his goal for the year for Annual Giving at US$220,000. I called it a modest sum, because it is less than the project sum of US$300,000 that our District has committed on a project that seeks to vaccinate about 200,000 children against Hepatitis B in Anqing City, Anhui Province, China. I had only learnt the day before and I was proud to announce there and then that the Rotary Foundation Trustees had approved a Major Matching Grant of $157,000 to enable us to carry out this project. The sum will match amounts to be contributed from the DDF of four districts, $120,000 from D-3450, and $10,000 from each of the three international partners, namely, D-3300 of Malaysia, D-3520 of Taipei and D-3650 of Korea. As we congratulate ourselves and the three generous districts for this wonderful and unprecedented feat, we must publicly and adequately recognize those donars in the district who had contributed generously over the years so that we have a sizeable level of District Designated Fund (DDF) for allocation to the project. The Matching Grant Award is indeed wonderful news. It is the Largest amount ever we had from the Foundation; and every cent will be properly spent and accounted for. A lot of hard work lies ahead and the Project Team will be asking Rotarians with the dedication and expertise for assistance and to share the joy of Service. More importantly, we would re-double our fund raising efforts so as to replenish as much as possible the DDF stock which would be substantially depleted on the project. Here I go back to what I said earlier and underline why it is so important for leaders in the District to lead by example. Sadly, there are past governors in the district who have yet attained major donor status, and equally noticeable is the fact that a number of Sub-Committee Chairs of the District Rotary Foundation Committee (DRFC) can be encouraged to contribute more. Here, at the risk of upsetting the district leadership, I must point out that all the Sub-Committee Chairs of the DRFC were appointed by the DG without consultation with the DRFC Chair. There must be a better system to work things out. A logical system would see the DG asking the DRFC Chair for suggestions, and an obvious criterion of appointment must be their past donation records or their willingness to contribute towards The Rotary Foundation. I can hear in my ears already that donations cannot and ought not be forced, but then nobody force anyone to be Rotarians. More importantly, nobody force anyone to be a leader or to take up responsible positions if that somebody is unwilling to do so. As I have said openly in many places before, anyone who wears the Rotary pin and does not contribute to The Rotary Foundation can be guilty of passing off and will not survive the 4-Way Test. | ||
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Views in any article in Kingspark News reflect those of the authors. They are not necessarily the views of the Rotary Club of Kingspark or of District 3450. You are welcome to write to Chief Editor Francis Wann or Club Webmaster John Wan on any topic, particularly in response to articles published in Kingspark News. We would publish all contributions as long as the authors identify themselves, the contents are not offensive or abusive, and would not offend common decency or common sense. You need not be a Rotarian to write to us and you have a choice to withhold your name in the published version. Where the contents make reference to statements or policies of individuals or organizations, we would try to obtain a response from the latter for publication in the same issue if possible. | ||
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Editor : Francis Wann The Board of Directors President
: Dominic Ko | ||
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