San Marino’s International Projects

India has a population of almost 1.4 billion with 2.6% with a physical disability. This project provides artificial limbs to about 40 physically handicapped persons in Panipat, India to bring them back in the main stream to make them self-dependent and to enable them to earn their livelihood and dignity. Beneficiaries include auto rickshaw drivers, housemaids, security guards, vendors etc.

The total cost of the project is US$42,000 with funding from the Panipat Royale and San Marino Rotary clubs, their respective Rotary districts and The Rotary Foundation. 

GG2343169 Dialysis Support

Host Club: Panipat Royale Rotary Club in India. 

International Club: San Marino
Participant Clubs: Other clubs in India

Our contribution: $7,000

Total Grant Budget: $41,762

2022-24  Dialysis Equipment for Health Center in Panipat, India

The India Dialysis project provides dialysis equipment to the health center operated by Shree Sant Jinda Kalyan Charitable Trust in Panipat, India. This organization has experience operating a dialysis unit at their facility in Surat, India. This project meets Rotary’s focus on disease prevention and treatment.

Kidney disease has been identified as the sixth fastest growing cause of death globally, estimated at 1.7 million people each year. About 8 million people in India are reported to be suffering from chronic kidney disease. In the city of Panipat, the number of patients on regular maintenance dialysis is estimated to be over 200. Those needing emergency dialysis are even higher. The city has about 40 dialysis machines, 15 in the government sector and 25 in the private sector to take care of the increasing demand for the procedure. The number of beneficiaries for this project is estimated at 35 to 75 per week, mostly patients below the poverty level, with the average age of over 50. There will be no charge for patients below the poverty line, while the others will pay a nominal fee of about US$4 per visit.

The total cost of the project is US$42,000 with funding from the Panipat Royale and San Marino Rotary clubs, their respective Rotary districts and The Rotary Foundation.

This project provides funds to add grow beds and a new airlift pump system, which reduces power usage and maintenance costs. The Community First Farm School is where families come to train in aquaponics before starting their own food systems at home. Such systems provide fish, a source of dearly needed protein and vegetables, while also creating economic opportunities for families by selling their produce.

In addition to constructing this innovative airlift aquaponics system, the existing training infrastructure at the Farm School needed additional grow beds to enhance its filtration capacity. With the additional fish tanks, the Farm School had expanded its fish stock significantly. However, to grow crops more effectively, additional grow beds are needed. These additional grow beds will also provide more training areas for students and enable the Farm School to grow more produce to sustain itself.

Cambodia Aquaponics Proposal 2022

Video by Campana Rotary Club, Argentina

This video was shared by the Compana Rotary Club in Argentina with the media in Campana, to describe most of the service projects that were completed during the Pandemic.  It includes recognition of the San Marino Rotary Club for the valuable help received to finalize service projects that will improve quality of life in their Community.

Video RCC pandemia.mp4 from Walter Waisman on Vimeo.

Medical Equipment Delivered – Thank You Note

Dear Shody,

Very nice to be in contact with you again to communicate the ceremony to deliver to Campana Municipality Hospital  the sonographer, that your Club and the District 5300 helped us to acquire.

They were present the Major of Campana City, Sebastian Abella, the Governor of Rotary District 4895, Vicente Roccasalva, Hospital Authorities, representatives of the business companies that helped to get the required funds, members of Rotary Club Campana, the Club Internal Wheel and many media journalists from Campana and surrounding zone.

Hospital authorities and medical professionals were really happy to receive the modern equipment

Attached are some pictures that were taken during the ceremony.

One more time, we would like to thanks San Marino Rotary Club important collaboration to help in the process of getting the funds for the project and we extent the thanks to your District 5300.

Kind regards.

Walter Waisman

Background

The Argentina Hospital Equipment project provides the Campana Municipal Hospital with an ultrasound machine. This will be a global grant project in cooperation with the Rotary Club of Campana with matching grants from the Rotary Districts and Rotary Foundation. The project meets Rotary’s focus on disease prevention and treatment, as well as maternal and child health.

At present, the Campana Municipal Hospital has an old ultrasound machine with difficulties to obtain spare parts. The hospital serves the population in Campana of about 100,000 habitants as well as those in surrounding cities such as Zarate, Capilla del Senor and Cardales. The additional and new ultrasound machine will reduce wait time, which is currently at well over a month for non-emergency cases. The beneficiaries are mainly patients with low economic means and have no health insurance. About 18,000 patients are catered to each month at this hospital with a monthly average of 1,000 ultrasound studies. The project is expected to be completed during the second quarter of 2022.

San Marino Rotary had worked successfully with Campana Rotary in 2018/9 on a global grant project to supply heavy duty farm equipment to the Agriculture Education Secondary School in Campana.

Buseesa Community Development Centre was founded in 2009 to start a microcredit program in Uganda. The organization has since expanded into education and healthcare. Since 2014, the school has grown from its initial two-classroom block with students in first and second grades to having 10 classrooms with 333 students. The health clinic serves over 3,000 patients with 169 babies delivered during the past 2 years. The clinic currently does not have sufficient space to meet the demand for childbirth, and hence the need to build a new maternity ward.

San Marino Rotary will provide 11 metallic beds with mattresses and install two 5,000 liter water tanks for water harvesting, solar panels to generate electricity and copper lightning arrester on top of the new 5 room maternity ward.

Water Tank Foundations and Maternity Ward Under Construction

Maternity Ward

Beds

Maternity Ward

This project provides additional funds for aquaponics family units in the villages in Sen Sok. Aquaculture allows the waste produced by farmed fish to supply nutrients for plants grown hydroponically, which in turn purify the water. The fish and produce may be consumed by the family and/or sold in the market to generate additional income. San Marino Rotary is working on this project with Community First, a non-profit operating in Cambodia.

April 2021, The Cambodia Village Aquaponics project has been completed.   

Pictures of the completed project:

Chili

Cabbage

Llily

Motor Bike

The Cambodia ambulance project addresses a serious medical transportation problem for five villages between 20 km and 60 km from the city of Siem Reap that has resulted in a number of totally unnecessary deaths. These villages are the source of students for the NGO called ODA that has previously received San Marino Rotary funds for the Cambodia Coconut Plantation project. ODA has agreed to source the vehicle and make it available to the clinic. This makes it possible for both villagers and students to get timely emergency medical service.  A second hand ambulance will be locally sourced to provide safe transportation between the local clinic, RUN TA EK Health Center (that serves the villages), and the provincial clinic in Siem Reap. The maintenance and fueling of the vehicle will be undertaken by the local village clinic.

This project will provide the 200 students at Telesecundaria 17 School located in the Maclovio Rojas district of Tijuana a safer, more humane and dignified place to complete their high school and prepare for higher education. San Marino Rotary is working on this Global Grant project with the Rotary Club of Tijuana Independencia within Rotary’s focus on basic education and literacy. The students currently take their lessons in classrooms with roofs made of corrugated metal sheets and walls that are not insulated, resulting in very high temperatures during the summer months. The school provides a meal program, but the kitchen does not have adequate equipment and the eating area is not protected from wind, dust and air born contaminants. The outdoor facilities are totally inadequate with slopes that may collapse when there is rain, and a physical hazard to the students and teachers. The plan is to modernize the campus by insulating the walls of the classrooms and add air conditioning. The kitchen will have more equipment and facilities, and the dining area walled off from the elements. Retaining walls will be added to secure the external slopes to avoid potential accidents.

The Thailand Hospital Equipment project provides patient monitors, infusion pumps and pulse oximeter to a 60-bed hospital that serves about 68,000 people in South Eastern Thailand. Soeng Sang Hospital has adequate infrastructure funded by the government and qualified staff, but it lacks funds to buy and replace old and obsolete medical equipment. The lack of proper equipment not only impacts the quality of treatment, but places an unacceptable strain on human resources in a time when the patient population is rising. This is a Rotary Global Grant project with the involvement of the Rotary Club of Patumwan in Thailand and E-Club of 9920 Francophone.

April, 2021 Pictures

This project provided concrete fish tanks and growing systems to a farm school in the Sen Sok Community in Cambodia to teach aquaponics, a system of aquaculture in which the waste produced by farmed fish supplies nutrients for plants grown hydroponically. San Marino Rotary is working once again with Community First, a non-profit operating in Cambodia. This project falls within Rotary’s focus on helping communities develop. See photo below.

The non-profit ODA based in Cambodia operates schools in Cambodia for underprivileged students to attend English and computer classes. Fluent English is the key to employment in and around the booming tourism industry in Siem Reap, and ODA’s schools directly address the need of improving students’ future employment opportunities. A small coconut plantation is planned on available land to generate income for the school. The project involves the cost of pump and pump house, water tank, irrigation pipes, fencing and seed coconuts. Once the water supply and fencing are in place, other gardening and aquaculture projects can be added. This project falls within Rotary’s focus on helping communities develop and improving basic education and literacy.

As part of the San Marino Rotary Readers Program, 200 Spanish books were donated to Avila Camacho Elementary School in Tijuana in June 2019.

In the marginalized communities in Tecate, Mexico, many families live in shacks and improvised shelters, often with no paved flooring. About 40 Rotarians from San Marino and South Pasadena, their family members and friends traveled together on April 13, 2019 to the hamlet of Valle de Las Palmas to build a solid, substantial colorful house 16×20 foot for a needy family with the assistance of the non-profit organization Corazon.

The project provides funds to purchase five 5,000 liter water tanks and stands, and install gutters for the classroom nursery block, teachers’ housing block and new staff housing quarters, as well as tables and desks for the dining hall for the school in Kabaale operated by BCDC. This project falls within Rotary’s focus on improving basic education and literacy.

July, 2019 Photos

November, 2020 Photos

This project will not only provide the 900 students at Angela Peralta Elementary School located in a marginalized part of Tijuana the opportunity to the use of an improved sports field, but also the 1,500 families living in the area to a healthy coexistence through sports and community activities. San Marino Rotary is working on this Global Grant project with the Rotary Club of Tijuana Independencia.

The school does not have modern infrastructure commonly found in many other areas in Tijuana. There is an open field that the students and the population in the surrounding area use as a sports field. The field is of pure dirt and does not have any toilets or sanitary installations. During the weekends, the field is used for different sport events, such as their inter-colonial soccer championships. By allowing the general population to use the sports field, there will be little vandalism as the neighbors and inhabitants in general will take care of the appearance and the integrity of the school. The project will promote healthy coexistence among the inhabitants of the area through sports and community activities and achieve an atmosphere of peace and cordiality between the neighbors of the low income suburbs.

The project to be carried out during 2018/9 consists of providing a sports field including an athletic track with an adequate drainage system to maintain the play area to be dry and mud-free during the raining season, and adding bathrooms and a small store to generate income for the maintenance of the field. The soccer field will be installed with artificial grass and bleachers. The number of direct and indirect beneficiaries is estimated to be between 5,000 and 6,000.

Soccer Field 1/23/18

12/2018

The San Marino Rotary Readers Program was started in 2000 to help students who have less opportunity to read because of a lack of books. About 36,000 books have so far been distributed to 41 schools in the West San Gabriel Valley. This program was extended to the kindergarten Jardín de Niños Raúl Anguiano in Tijuana 2017. A delivery of 228 Spanish and bilingual books were given to Angela Peralta Elementary School in Tijuana in May 2018.

The Agricultural Education Secondary School does not have heavy equipment to till the land and currently only utilizes about 2 acres out of the 20 acres. The project will allow the school to purchase a tractor, disc plows, dredge, weeding machine and other agricultural equipment to grow pecan nut, soybean, corn, fruit trees and vegetables. The students are also taught bee keeping for honey and how to raise pigs, chicken and sheep. By increasing the land use and its efficiency, the students will experience practical activities on top of their theoretical learning. The improved education at the school will encourage students to remain on Talavera Island without the need to leave to other cities in Argentina. This project falls within Rotary’s focus on improving basic education and literacy, and helping communities develop.

May, 2019

Dear Friends,

After completing the documentation for the donation, a ceremony took place yesterday, May 15 2019, when we the Agro School received the tractor and other farm elements.  Around 300 people attended the meeting held in the island, including Education authorities, islanders, Rotarians from our club and the District, special guests, press coverage on live.  The school prepare a show in celebration also for its 20th anniversary and after that we discovered a plaque in testimony of the donation, including the names of all the clubs and districts contributing to the grant. After that we symbolically started up the tractor resulting in the emotion of all the people. Media coverage has been very successful with high penetration in local and regional public according to first measurement.

Examples:
http://www.campana360web.com/sitio/entrega-del-tractor-y-elementos-de-labranza-a-la-escuela-eesa-n-1-en-isla-talavera/
https://03489citynoticias.com.ar/nota/23331/rotary-club-campana-donacion-de-un-tractor-y-elementos-de-labranza-para-la-escuela-de-ensenanza-agraria-no-1-isla-talavera

We accomplished the main milestone. A training for all the school community is planed for coming week by machinery specialists.  As part of the training plan, we also will receive the visit of specialists in added value to primary production of vegetables, honey, and land productivity improvement.  Since we still have remaining funds, due to discounts obtained from vendors and good administration of peso devaluation, we revisited the scope of elements to be donated up to complete the forecast before year end. 

This is a new opportunity to thanks you all and share the emotion from the beneficiaries of this project.

Please find pictures attached and a video in this link —> https://vimeo.com/336628542

Thanks and best regards,

Luis

In the marginalized communities in Tecate, Mexico, many families live in shacks and improvised shelters, often with no paved flooring. About 50 Rotarians from San Marino and South Pasadena, their family members and friends traveled together on April 28, 2018 to build a solid, substantial house 16×20 foot for a needy family with the assistance of the non-profit organization Corazon.

More about the Corazon House Build

Building Community Across Borders video by Georg Eittinger

Photos

San Marino Rotary made a contribution to purchase building materials for the Rotary District 5300 SuperBuild program in conjunction with Corazon in Tecate, Mexico. Four homes were built on April 30 for needy families with the help of Rotarians and friends. See Video

San Marino Rotary is working with the Rotary Club of Tijuana Oeste on a Rotary Global Grant project to make available medical equipment and supplies to the ProSalud clinics to be used for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cervical-uterine and breast cancer for women without medical social security services. ProSalud operates five clinics in various Tijuana neighborhoods providing general health care, prenatal education and care, gynecological services, testing for sexually transmitted infections, serving over 8,000 clients each year. The mobile clinic provides medical and educational services with an emphasis on sexual and reproductive health in the marginalized sectors of the city that lack accessible medical services, as well as in Tecate, Ensenada and Rosarito.

December, 2016 Trip to ProSalud Clinics