This week we were energised by two engaging speakers who shared with us their passion and aspirations. The first speaker was Manu Latu, a final year student of AGGS who shared how her aspirations were built upon her participation in MUNA (Model United Nations) which then led her to become one of the 3 participants selected to attend the UNESCO World Heritage Committee in Bahrain in Jun-July this year.
Our main guest speaker was Ronji Tanielu, a lawyer and advisor to the Social Policy and Parlimentary Unit at the Salvation Army. Ronji shared with us how important it is for disruptive thinking in the NGO sector and how it can lead to creative solutions to huge societal problems- such as the creation of Salvos Legal - an award winning law firm created in 2010 that provides free legal services to socially and economically disadvantaged people across cities in Australia.
Another point that Ronji highlighted during his talk, is the importance of being clear about the purpose and focus of a organisation- why do we exist? In the case of Salvation Army, Ronji spoke about their purpose is to be a church first- and not the social services arm of the government. Since 1883, the Salvation Army have fought poverty and social and spiritual distress by helping families and individuals in need with budgeting advice, food, and clothing assistance, life skills programmes and other comfort and support.
Being clear, focused, and willing to bring positive change - resonated with me as it's something we are striving to achieve at our own Club.
In the beginning of the year, I shared our goals to bring about more Clarity through Communication, Collaboration and Commitment. This led to a process where we identified 7 social causes which we want to commit and focus on.
To help us all be clear and aligned on what it is that we do as a club and why we exist- I plan to highlight one social cause every month in the Noticeboard.
See "Stories" below for highlights about our support for "Child and Adolescent Mental Health."
Child and adolescent mental health is a very serious problem in NZ. New Zealand has the highest rate of teenage suicides amongst all OECD countries.
Led by our Champion Graham Hendry, we are striving to support positive change by funding programmes that give clinicians access to the best practise solutions to help with their diagnosis and treatment.
Our Club proudly supports the following projects:
1. SPARX
Downtown Rotary has contributed over $170,000 to fund a Post-Doctoral researcher at the Auckland University School of Psychological Medicine to develop a treatment programme for teenagers suffering from severe depression. The computer-based SPARX electronic game was the result. This interactive tool has been hailed internationally for its continuing success in addressing this disorder.
2. A National Research Network:
75% of mental health issues commence before the age of 25 years. 15% of children and adolescents are known to suffer from mental health but only 3% of them actually get to see a specialist. We cannot fund increasing the number of clinicians (as it is the responsibility of Government). However we are aiming to make the current number of child and adolescent mental health practitioners as effective as possible.
Therefore our objective is to develop an online network to improve communications among academics and practitioners specialising in CAMH to:
Detail the skills and resources that are currently available
Determine the areas of greatest need
Keep practitioners appraised of current proven mainstream research
Collaborate on clinically meaningful NZ-wide research projects
Share outcomes of research projects amongst practitioners
Provide access to visiting specialists
Downtown Rotary is helping with the funding of this national research network.
At present a national survey is being developed to inform the design and use of this network (website). This will be run in October 2018.
The next stage will be to design the website and then to populate it and run an initial ‘test of concept’.
Research into prescribing for children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder
The services over summer 2018-9 of a student to help run this project have been secured, subject to funding and ethics approval by Auckland University. Once approved, it is expected that this project will run from Nov 2018 till Feb 2019 with the results to be presented at an Autism education day in March 2019. A contribution to funding by Downtown Auckland Rotary will materially assist here.
On 22 September, Gareth was one of 5 judges at AGGS to judge teams from 65 year 10 students as they came to the close of their 3 day Business Challenge. Students grouped into companies, decided on a hypothetical product, write a business strategy, ‘sell’ their product, and launch their idea at an oral competition of the final day.
Students get into notional companies where they research and decide on a hypothetical product, write a business strategy to produce and sell their product and then launch the idea in an oral presentation competition on the final day) We had 65 of our Year 10 students involved with this over 3 days and our own member Gareth Juddery was one of the five Judges on the final day.
What a great turnout at our Fundraising dinner on 25 September at Wine Chambers!
62 guests including DG Ingrid Waugh, Rotarians, RYLARians, Rotaractors, corporate clients and supporters of Child & Adolescent Mental Health and Edmund Hillary Primary School all came out to listen to Michelle A'Court share with us her personal story about how she became a comedienne and the inspiration to her best selling books.
It was a great night out. Thanks to everyone for their support in making it happen.
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