DRR MESSAGE- OCTOBER, 2021.

(COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT MONTH)

We kill time. We save time. We rob and get robbed of time, we lose time, and we have all the time in the world. But no one of us is powerful enough to stop the march of time or slow it down. Please check the time and realize the first quarter of the 2021-22 Rotary year has gone.

The month of September was a very busy month for Rotaract District as the 2021-22 Rotary year is locomotively gathering momentum.

DISTRICT UPDATES
The month started with a rousing welcome of Rotary International President Shekhar and Rashi Mehta to District 9110. It was an exciting moment for Rotary family; personally, I am glad that the hard copies of the District newsletter will someday be referenced in history as one of the few newsletters that has traveled with Rotary International President beyond our local District and even Nigeria.

On the back of a colorful hosting of Rotary International President, on Saturday 18th September, 2021, Rotaract members from Lagos and Ogun converged in Ijanikin-Oto Awori for awareness trek against Depression and suicide. The trek activities also involved a novelty match between Team Awareness Trek and Team Polio. It was an event well attended, to in one voice say No to depression and give a deserving tribute to the heroes we lost to suicide. Truly, our impact in Oto Awori community will not be forgotten soon.

Also, the District Polio team was involved in the monitoring of the vaccination in some communities in Ajegunle where some pluses were donated as logistics aid to continually keep Polio at zero.

The District also had an online Basic Education and Literacy Seminar on promoting education of girl child in rural communities in global communities. The webinar was aimed to provide insights and project initiatives for Rotaract Clubs towards the vision of Rotary International President on girl child empowerment. The webinar remain on of the best online event ever organized; the promptness and well timed, coordination by the anchor, the deep knowledge of speakers and attentiveness of the participants.

DRR VISITS
4 more clubs were visited in the month of September making it a total of 13 Clubs visited in the first quarter. It was an opportunity to advance the vision of the Rotary International and District goals. I want to urge club leaders to take it more seriously.

OCTOBER ACTIVITIES
The month of October is designated for Community Economic Development. Clubs are to be involved or coordinate projects to improve communities and economy of our dear nation. Also, our Nation Nigeria

The District is in partnership with Lagos State Government to train youths on vocational skills. It is a 3-month vocational project for Rotaractors and non Rotaractors to acquire skills for personal development. As District, we have also open the opportunity to Rotaract Clubs to also partner in the project through numerous initiatives. I am glad that Clubs have started indicating interest.

Distinguished Changemakers, it has been a wonderful first quarter which I have learned about the twist of life, I have also met great mind by virtue of my position and I am thankful to you all for your support to set new records for the District. I am urging you for more supports because the District will be making big impacts and milestones in the coming months.

Nigeria celebrates independence day anniversary today, as humanitarian, we must continue to showcase ourselves as a model of service above self for the land to continue flowing with milk and honey to see the change we so desire of our country.

We are great people of great nation!

Happy new month of October and Happy Independence day Nigeria.

Signed
Ayodeji Ezekiel Sobowale
District Rotaract Representative
Rotary International District 9110.
drrdeji2021.22@gmail.com
+2348033699311

DG MESSAGE- OCTOBER, 2021.

They always say time changes things but you actually have to change them yourself. Once again, BEAT THE CLOCK…

We have earned the right to celebrate our country, Nigeria. We shall continue to do good as we are ‘people doing good in the world’. The Nigeria we desire will be attained when we decide to be that harbinger of change as we are the Change Makers. I am most delighted to say happy independence anniversary to Nigeria where we live and serve to change lives.

We are in October; a quarter of this Rotary year is over. As the saying goes, time changes things but we actually have to change them ourselves hence my charge of last month that I am still repeating here, Beat the clock. October is Economic and Community Development month in the Rotary calendar globally.

Last month, which was Basic Education and Literacy month saw me supporting our clubs during the DG’s visits in pursuance of the month’s focus on Basic Education and Literacy by visiting some of our primary schools.

Apart from presenting educational materials, I supervised reading by pupils; read with them and commissioned state-of-the-art bungalow with well-furnished classrooms, teachers’ room and headmistress office -- all en-suite constructed and donated by RC Maryland, Ikeja in collaboration with Chris Bamidele Onalaja Foundation (CBOF).

Seeing what our clubs are doing, I felt proud of our organisation, Rotary International, and indeed felt proud being a Rotarian.

I am glad to say that we are living to the charge of the ‘Change Maker Year’ as we continue to “Do More and Grow More”. The push of our planned Rotary Day of Service continued to gain momentum as our clubs are bracing up to showcase more service projects, more collaborations, more partnerships, more of community engagements and we have started to see the effect of all these in our ‘Grow More’ in membership.

We put out a challenge to grow membership in clubs during the month of August – Membership and New Club Development month with special recognition and award to be given to clubs that were able to induct a minimum of ten new members and form new Rotary Club(s). The following clubs won the recognition and awards for inducting 10 and more members:
RC Festac Town came first by inducting 13 members;
RC Maryland, Ikeja came second by inducting 11 members and RC Isolo came third by inducting 10 members.

On formation of new clubs, RC Ikeja South came first by sponsoring RC Alakuko with 28 new members and RC Mushin Metro came second by sponsoring RC Ajao Estate with 26 new members. The various winners were recognised and given new members induction kit worth between =N=100,000 and =N=140,000 each to the five winners as awards.

I used the opportunity of the Multi-club training to promise additional recognition awards to Clubs before the end of the year. I thank the District Membership Committee Chairman, PDG Pat Ikheloa, for overseeing the challenge.

This time in the last Rotary year 2019-2020, our membership strength was 3,081 and 3,621 as at 1st July, 2021. I am happy to note that we achieved our goal of 4,000 strong membership before the end of September 2021, having grown our membership to 4,083. I thank all those that shared our membership slogan of ‘Each One Bring One and Retain All’ that has given us the kind of result we are having in ‘Grow More’. May I use this opportunity to welcome our newly formed clubs into the family.

OFFICIAL WORKING VISIT OF ROTARY INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT SHEKHAR MEHTA AND SPOUSE RASHI TO NIGERIA
The Rotary International President, Shekhar and his Spouse, Rashi Mehta, started their visit to Nigeria from District 9110. We set the pace while others followed. In the RI President’s team was Past Rotary International Vice President Yinka Babalola, PDG Kazeem Mustapha and EMGA PDG Pearl Ijeoma Okoro. On hand to join me in receiving the RI President were the District Governors from the other three Districts in Nigeria, DG Okechukwu Okonkwo of District 9142; DG Eyone Andy Uwejeyan of District 9141 and DG Ayo Oyedokun of District 9125.

From our District leaders, we had the Doyen of Past District Governors PDG Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi mni and other PDGs. The District Rotaract Representative, Deji Shobowale, was also on hand to receive the RI President.
During the visit, the first point of contact for Shekhar Mehta was the dedication of the Indo-Eye/Rotary Eye Hospital in Lagos. This project was funded by Indo Eye Foundation and furnished with Rotary Global Grant through the Rotary Club of Lagos Palmgrove Estate.
Trees were planted by the RI President, his wife Rashi, PRIVP and visiting District Governors at the Rotary Centre.

The RI President’s girl-child empowerment project was given a boost through the vaccination of young girls aged 9-14 years for HPV. The vaccination exercise was carried out under the supervision of PDG Dr. Jide Akeredolu while the RI President observed the vaccination exercise. The RI President made an appearance at the Polio House where he was received by the Chairman of the Nigeria National PolioPlus Committee, PDG Dr. Tunji Funsho and Vice Chairman, PDG Yomi Adewunmi.

It was a well packaged reception by our District by the ‘RI President Reception ad-hoc Committee’ ably led by its Chairman, RRFC Deinde Shoga, and others in the Committee. Please permit me to use this opportunity to appreciate members of the committee and indeed all Rotarians of our District for their time and generosity in our fund-raising drive to meet the expenses during the visit.

As at 30th September, 2021 the official District Governor's visit had been conducted in 49 clubs out of the 130 clubs in the District. It has been a worthy experience from the clubs visited so far. Dues are being paid, DEWEF pledges are being redeemed and payments are generally impressive.

THE ROTARY FOUNDATION
If there is an urgent need for us to Beat the clock, it is mostly in our Foundation. Nevertheless, I am happy to report that one of our prospects for Arch Klump Society membership (AKS) was achieved through a Rotarian couple, Change Maker President Rotarian Bamidele Onalaja of RC of Maryland, Ikeja and Past President Tolulope Onalaja of RC Ogudu GRA.

The new AKS members were decorated by RI President Shekhar Mehta on 2nd September, 2021. As part of our initiative to ‘beat the clock’ in the area of The Rotary Foundation, a challenge for contributors to EREY has been introduced during the month.

The challenge will afford each contributor to TRF the chance of winning a choice land in the Lekki area of Lagos State. The more you contribute to TRF, the higher your chance of winning the parcel of land and other consolation prizes while the TRF credit to your account is intact.

October, as I mentioned earlier, is Economic and Community Development month. This is when we have activities in micro finance and poverty alleviation schemes in poor communities, etc. Project ideas range from providing start-up equipment to young entrepreneurs, to vocational training for those without marketable skills, especially women.

Our District will launch the novel District Economic Empowerment Programme (DEEP) as a flagship programme of the year during the month. This programme is meant to serve indigent students, like the other side of the coin that DEWEF has always been -- granting scholarship (to indigent but bright students) while DEEP is the other side of the coin (indigent but not bright students) that the parents sponsor from the little that they have.

DEEP will be used to empower the parents in order to be in position to sponsor their children to school. The DEEP will be provided with seed money of N20 million (Twenty million naira) to be managed by an independent finance expert that would be chosen by DEEP committee under the supervision of DEWEF Board of Trustees. This fund will be a permanent fund to be supervised by DEWEF Board of Trustees.

APPOINTMENT OF INDEPENDENT AUDITOR
The District Finance Committee has requested for Expression of Interest by Rotarians who are in the Audit Practice to take up the District Audit for 2021-2022.

PUBLIC IMAGE ACTIVITIES
As we are settling down in the new Rotary year, many clubs have done their investiture to raise funds for service projects; clubs are encouraged once again to key into the ‘Adopt-a-School’ project of the District for the year. Rotary Day of Service is our tool for promoting Rotary Image this Rotary year. Clubs are enjoined to follow up with the District committee in charge of the event.

It is time to go to work in order for us to have projects to showcase during our chosen Rotary Day of Service.

DISTRICT POLIO PLUS
The District Polio Plus Committee organised Polio seminar and awards were given to clubs that were 100% compliant with payment of individual $10.00 per Rotarian.

ROTARY YOUTH LEADERSHIP AWARDS
The RYLA Committee has continued with its plan of organising a massive RYLA of about 1,500 youths this Rotary year. Our clubs have been very supportive, because with less than 50 clubs visited by me, sponsorship has exceeded 1,200. From the look of things, sponsorship is not likely to be the challenge for this year’s RYLA but I suspect that nomination of candidates will become the big issue.

May I therefore appeal to our clubs to start the process of nominating their candidates ahead of invitation by the committee.
DISTRICT INTERACT REPRESENTATIVE
The installation of District Interact Representative Arinze Chukwukelu took place on the last day of September 2021 in a well packaged event. I congratulate the District Interact Committee for a good outing.

FINAL RITES FOR PDG+ OLALEKAN EZEKIEL OGUNDIMU
A Rotary Day of Tributes was organised on 14th September, 2021 by the District We Care Committee, in memory of the late Past District Governor. A full page colour Obituary was placed in the Punch newspaper by the District on the same day. Other Past District Governors and I participated in the burial activities both in Lagos and Abeokuta. May the soul of Past District Governor Ogundimu rest in peace.

“Together we can, together we will”.

Let us beat the clock and be the Change Makers as we serve to change lives.

'REMI BELLO, FCA
District Governor

RI PRESIDENT MESSAGE - OCTOBER, 2021.

A quarter of the Rotary year is now behind us. I am sure you are helping Rotary to grow more and do more. And I hope you have already done your part for the Each One, Bring One initiative by introducing one person to Rotary.

Do you ever think about your earliest days as a Rotarian? I often do — because those first moments of discovering the power of service shaped who I am today. When I joined my Rotary club, our efforts focused on India’s rural communities, where people were living without toilets, getting their drinking water from the same pond they bathed in, and sending their children to outdoor classrooms set up under a tree. The nearest health care provider often was miles away — and the services were inadequate. But after Rotary clubs carried out some service projects, the villages had toilets, clean drinking water, a classroom for early learning, and a nearby health care center.

The spark that Rotary kindled within me forced me to look beyond myself and embrace humanity. It made service a way of life and led me to a guiding principle I still stand by: Service is the rent I pay for the space I occupy on Earth.

If you feel the need to reignite the spark of service in yourself or your club, October — Community Economic Development Month — is a great time to do so. When we work to improve the lives of people in underserved communities — through, for example, projects that provide vocational training and access to financial resources — we help build and sustain local economic growth.

The need is great. According to the United Nations, 9 percent of the world’s population — that’s 700 million people, a majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa — live on less than $1.90 a day. By supporting strong community development as well as entrepreneurs, we can help improve conditions for people in that region and others.

Your club can also promote economic development in your own community by expanding vocational training opportunities through local schools and community colleges, partnering with lenders to improve access to financial services, or working with a nonprofit that provides resources to entrepreneurs and connects them with the business community.

Of course, developing strong communities is impossible without strong public health. On 24 October, World Polio Day, we’ll celebrate our tremendous progress in the effort to eradicate polio. But we also know the fight is not over. We still need your help raising funds and awareness to ensure that all children are immunized against polio. Please don’t forget to activate your clubs on that important day and encourage them to donate here: endpolio.org/world-polio-day.

Service has been rewarding for me throughout my life. I know the same is true for many of you. Join me this month in becoming a good tenant of our planet by helping others to better themselves and their communities. Together, we can Serve to Change Lives.