~ Newberg Noon Rotary Club Newsletter ~
Rotary Club of Newberg, Zoom Meeting
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
~ Call to Order ~
President Joe Morelock welcomed Rotarians and Friends of Rotary to the Hybrid Live/Zoom meeting at 12:00 p.m. Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at the Newberg School District Offices.
~ Flag Salute ~
Judy lead participants in the Pledge of Allegiance.
~ 4 Way Test ~
Michelle lead participants in the recital of the 4 Way Test:
Rotary’s Four Way Test of the things we think, say and do:
#1 – Is it the TRUTH?
#2 – Is it FAIR to all concerned?
#3 – Will it BUILD GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
#4 – Is it BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
~ Announcements ~
Past President’s Holiday Dinner: Wendy is organizing the Past President Holiday Dinner on December 9th 6:30pm to 8:30pm at Parrot Mountain Wine Cellars. There will be limited tickets available (40 maybe) so sign up early if you are interested.
Auction Updates: The Auction will take place on Friday, October 29th, 2021. If you would like to find more opportunities to help out or learn more about the coming auction, reach out to Amy. If you have a great idea for an auction item, you have days left so make it happen or forever hold your peace. Paper forms will be available at the meetings if you already have items or packages procured. Also if you would like to give a shout out to donors, you can do so at the Club Meeting and we will post in the Newsletter. Thanks again for your generous and exciting donations. A Huge Thank You goes out to the following Sponsors of the event:
A-dec
DCI
George Packing
Providence Health Plans
Enter Into Calm
Providence Newberg Medical Center
Extraordinary Systems, LLC
Krohn’s Appliance Service
Tonkon Torp
Waste Management
Chehalem Insurance Services
GO ONLINE, REGISTER, AND BUY YOUR TICKETS! www.newbergrotary.org/auction
~ Guests ~
Judge Najla Ayoubi, Guest Speaker
Deborah Schultz, Guest, Rotary Club of Cincinnati
Adam Steckel, Guest, Portland Pearl Rotary Club
Judy Allen, Guest, Rotary Club of Wallowa County
James Beus, Guest
Danielle Sherman, Guest, Portland Pearl Rotary Club
Steve Williams, Guest, Rotary Club of Hermistan
Leslie Brunker, Guest, Rotary Club of Portland
Charles Pierce, Guest, Rotary Club of Cincinnati
Stew Martin, Guest, Rotary Club of Seaside
Donna Tallman, Guest, Portland Pearl Rotary Club
Scott Parker, Guest, ED for the Chehalem Valley Chamber of Commerce
Erin Thomas, Guest, Rotary Club of Albina – Portland
Machelle, Guest, Columbian Exchange staying with Christy
Valerie Jean Oliver, Guest, Rotary Club of Selkirk Manitoba, Canada
~ The Rotary Duck ~
Brandy: Wendy is organizing the Past President Holiday Dinner on December 9th 6:30 to 8:30pm at Parrot Mountain Wine Cellars. There will be limited tickets available (40 maybe) so sign up early if you are interested. Also mentioned that she had just taken a trip to Upstate New York and saw all sorts of Rotary Signs on her journey.
Amy: We have sold 87 tickets to the Live Auction. Please get out and buy your tickets if you have not yet. If you need help with getting tickets, please let Amy know, otherwise visit www.newbergrotary.org/auction. Volunteering is also needed for setting up, tearing down, and more.
Joe: Announced that it is Denise Bacon’s Birthday! Happy Birthday, Denise!
Laura: Donated in honor of Denise’s Birthday!
James Beus: Announced a community food drive November 8-12th, by which they are collecting non-perishable food items at the Astor House (near Fred Meyer). They will donate this food as well as cleaning supplies to FISH as well as maybe a few other food banks.
Christy: Thanked Laura for helping to make today’s prestation happen and for ralleying all of the support and guests from other partnering clubs.
~ Today’s Program: Violence Against Women Grant with the Honorable Judge Najla Ayoubi ~
Christy Cowgill introduced today’s speaker: the Honerable Judge Najla Ayoubi. Najla is the Chief of Coelition and Global Programs with Every Woman Treaty, a non-Profit focused on advocating for women and creating partnerships and programs to make the world safer for women and girls worldwide. Najla is a lawyer, a former judge, and has extensive experience in judiciary elections, human rights, and women’s empowerment. She lives in the US currently, but was born in Afganistan, before the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s. She studied abroad in Britain and in the Soviet Union. She then became the first Woman to be appointed as a Judge in her Province.
Najla thanked everyone who has supported her program. She shared that she became passionate about violence against women and womens rights from a young age. Her mother was a traditional young bride who was engaged by 12 and married and had her first child by the age of 16, before she was physically or mentally mature enough. She had 2 more girls and unfortunately the culture in Afghanistan is discriminatory towards women. It is a powerful patriarchal society, whereby the men in power understand that giving education and rights to women is a threat to their control and traditions. Najla recognized this from a young age and went on a quest to enact change for the better. Getting through school, college, and becoming a professional, especially a Judge, is nearly impossible. She achieved this at great cost as her father and brother who were killed for advocating for women’s rights as well as supporting her studying abroad to become a judge and legal professional. She even shared that due to local laws, she had to borrow her neighbor’s 4 year old boy to get groceries as women must be accompanied by men when in public. As the first female judge, she helped enact the very first Afghanistan law criminalizing violence against women and did a lot of work on improving the constitution as well as many new legislation. As a result she had to build a bunker within her home to use as a saferoom and eventually she and her entire family had to flee in 2015 to the US to seek asylum.
The current situation is so dire in part because the Taliban has recruited extremists from around the world to come aid in their work and even been promised Afghan women as property in exchange. Violence and sex trafficking have become problems and women are suffering greatly. Women become dependent physically, socially, and financially based on this culture. There is a concept understood in Afghanistan that “once you educate a woman, you cannot uneducate her.”She noted that violence against women is not just an issue in Afghanistan, but worldwide as their coalition includes 840 organizations in 128 countries working to improve the lives of women throughout the world.
With this particular project in Nepal, partially funded by us Rotarians, they are looking to educate young men to respect women and women’s rights as well as teaching young women to advocate and respect themselves. They seek to increase peace and reduce violence against women through education. They have done a lot of work on the first phase of the current project which included selecting organizations, doing an assessments, and developing the curriculum. They have kept the 25 organizations engaged during covid.
For more information about the Every Woman Treaty, visit their website at www.everywoman.org.
~ Next Week’s Program: Classification Talk with Kyla Sliger~
Check your e-mails for Mike Caruso’s Zoom meeting access information.
~ Joke of the Day ~
“My friend David had his ID stolen. Now he is just Dav.”
~ Happy Quotes! ~
“If you educate a woman, you educate the nation.”
– African Proverb
~ Published 10/23/2021: Dan Keuler, Newsletter Editor ~
Travis Toedtemeier of the Newberg Early Birds Rotary Club presented today on himself and the work he does with Connections NW (previously worked with Alliance Services). He graduated Faith Bible High School and graduated in 2006. He went to college at GFU with a degree in interdisciplinary studies and ultimately went back to school earning a Masters in Business Administration at Liberty University. He has been working in social services over the last 10 years, and is educated/trained in motivational Interviewing, trauma informed care, medication management, Oregon Intervention Services, job developer training, and has volunteered for the Special Olympics. He noted that he loves his work but ultimately the two most important things in his life are Faith and Family. He has a 4 year old son and 2 year old daughter. Otherwise he likes staying active doing basketball, fishing, golfing, camping, etc.
Danielle Howard Dye is the Program Coordinator of JOY. Danielle and her husband are Newberg residents and she is also a teacher for the JOY program. She graduated from GFU in 2019 with a Bachelor’s Degree in music pre-teaching and violin performance. She came to share about the JOY program.
Christy has been working with the Interact Club on a fundraising effort aimed at providing opportunities for a quality education for young girls in Kenya. The goal of the Rise to Shine Educational Foundation is to keep Kenyan girls in school. Emily Bakhitah, was invited here to share her program today. Christy shared that Braqndy invited her to get involved in Rotary Youth services and highlighted some of the work that Judy and Denise have done in this area of Rotary. She noted that last year the Interact students spoke about their pen pals in Africa that pushed Christy to do some research help with this project. Last year, 14 Clubs, including our Interact Club, throughout District 5100 raised enough money to support 54 Kenyan Students to go to school. This year, the Newberg Club will collect the funds and organize the effort to support those students for a second year of school. She shared that so far we have raised over $18,000. She thanked Denise, Judy, Paul, and Laura for their support on this project and showed a video put together whereby those very students gave words of appreciation for this support and shared about why this is important to them. She then welcomed and introduced our guest speaker, Emily Bakhitah.
Emily Bakhitah is a member of the Rotary Club of Kisumu Winam (Kenya) and the Executive Director of the Rise to Shine Education Foundation. Emily shared that the cost per student is just $600 on average, which makes sure that they have schooling fees, food, uniforms, books, and transportation. She said she began this project as a work of the heard born from passion and generosity. When she was young, her eldest (of 9 girls) sisters helped raiser them all and became pregnant at 13. This is not unusual as many young girls get married off early. Fortunately for Emily, at the age of 8 she was given a scholarship when a local priest came to their family with this opportunity to attend Primary school. She worked hard and became the best student in the district, affording her a scholarship to attend high school, which then led to a scholarship for college, eventually earning a Bachelors Degree. Many other young girls don’t want to get forced into marriage and instead have dreams of education and economic independence. She helped another young girl find this opportunity, which led to helping more and more young girls achieve this type of dream, eventually starting the Rise to Shine Educational Foundation.