Major Project

INTERNATIONAL PROJECT
2000/2001

Timor Ambulance

At the beginning of Rotary Year 2000/2001, then President Michael Vrettakis suggested that the Club have as its focus for the year a major international project. The project chosen was the donation of an ambulance to a hospital in East Timor.
This followed discussions with Lyall Wheaton from District 9550 in Darwin who was coordinating Rotary aid to the fledgling nation. The New Generations/International Committee was tasked with coordinating the project on behalf of the Club. A helping grant from Rotary International was requested to supplement the Club's contribution and a kind donation from Azko Nobel Pty Ltd. The funding allowed us to purchase and equip a Toyota 4wd vehicle. Lyall Wheaton kindly facilitated our needs in the Top End. Just as the funds were in place to allow us to proceed with the purchase, Lyall advised that the need for an ambulance had been overtaken by events. Fortunately, an alternative requirement for a mobile TB clinic came to notice at the same time. Our vehicle was quickly converted to provide mobility to the Uma Ita Nian Clinic which is run by the Maryknoll Sisters in the Alieu district of East Timor.

The vehicle eventually arrived in East Timor on 4 September 2001 and was soon in action. Besides treating TB cases, the clinic treats many other diseases found in the Alieu district. Staff of the clinic is most appreciative of our donation as the 4wd gives them the mobility needed to access the remote villages in the mountains surrounding Alieu. It has also given our club and the suburb of Hoppers Crossing a unique profile in both Darwin and East Timor. All in all a satisfying and successful project, that has already made, and will continue to make, a positive contribution to the long-suffering people of East Timor.

Recent photographs from Timor:

Doctor Livermore at the wheel

A vehicle must sometimes pass roads of this quality.

Letter received July 2003

President Max,

I have recently returned from my official visit, as District Governor, to the Rotary Club of Dili. Timor Leste is, as you would know, now within District 9550 which includes most of the northern part of the Northern Territory and Queensland, an area of some 1.5 million square kilometres.

During my visit I saw many of the projects being undertaken by the members of the Rotary Club of Dili including the "Infant Formula Milk Powder Project" which the Rotary Club of Alkmaar-Bergen in Holland is currently sponsoring. President David Boyce took my wife and I on his regular trip to deliver the milk powder to the Maryknoll Sisters at the Parish of St Peter and St Paul in the District of Aileu, approximately 150Kms out of Dili. While we were visiting, Sister Susan Gubbins mentioned that the greatest gift they had in recent times received was an ambulance and that the Rotary Club Of Hoppers Crossing in Victoria had been the club which made the donation.

She also told us of a recent traffic accident on the mountain road just outside of Aileu, where an Australian man had been badly injured and the ambulance was sent to bring him to the hospital. It seems that the fellow was astounded to be collected by an ambulance with "Rotary Club of Hoppers Crossing" painted in large letters across the side of it as he himself was from Hoppers Crossing. The nuns reckon the Lord moves in mysterious ways.

I must say my visit and seeing the work being undertaken by the Sisters, in a place so remote that they do not even have a telephone, made me proud to be a Rotarian. The Sisters not only operate the ambulance but they also run the program of milk formula distribution for mothers of new born babies, identify patients to be brought to Australia for ROMAC and other local community development programs, many of which are supported by Rotary

I thought you would like to know that your ambulance is doing a great job and it is much appreciated by both the Sisters and the people of the province.

Thank you for your generosity.

Mike Rennie
District Governor D9550

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