While in Vancouver I observed a lot of work going on to continue efforts to help Haiti. In this case the focus was the School of Nursing which was completely destroyed during the earthquake killing 74 young nursing students. Rose Charities Canada and Rose USA combined their efforts initially to send medical staff – nurses and pediatricians. These medics on the spot were able to identify specific needs for equipment and training all of which were desperately needed.
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Rose meeting in garden in Vancouver
This is a photo taken by Pip Neville- Barton, a Rose Charities NZ Trustee. She was at a meeting of Rose Canada volunteers who were discussing the project in Sri Lanka. Last year Rose Charities Sri Lanka received a generous grant from a Swiss foundation. This is helping develop education projects at all levels – ranging from pre-school to university – in Kalmunai which was devastated in the tsunami. The great thing about the project is that it is run by the community itself.
In the photo – (viewers right to left), Josephine de Freitas, (back to camera), William Grut, Linda Roberts, Yoga Yogendran, Bill Johnston, and Gail Belcher.
Auckland theatre Star Jennifer Ward-Lealand boosts Rose Charities fundraiser
The star of the Auckland theatre scene, Jennifer Ward-Lealand, welcomed guests to a Rose Charities NZ fundraising night with Silo Theatre during their season of Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins. She is pictured with Rose NZ chairperson, Trish Gribben.
The musical black comedy, which received rave reviews, was followed by a soiree where hand-woven silk scarves from Cambodia were sold to raise money for the Rose Eye Clinic in Phnom Penh. By a stroke of lucky timing, Jennifer herself had visited Cambodia with her family, returning only four days before the event. “I couldn’t believe the poverty we saw there,” she told the 100 people gathered.
Rose Charities NZ’s patron, Dame Silvia Cartwright, was also in the news the same week, as a member of the international war crimes tribunal which announced its first verdict on Dutch, the notorious torturer and killer of Tuol Sleng prison.
Around 60 scarves were sold from a table which carried a photograph of patients waiting at the clinic and a sign saying: Buy a scarf and give a stranger in Phnom Penh an eye operation. $40 — the scarves have been donated; all proceeds go to the clinic.
The event raised nearly $4000 which is sufficient to restore sight to 160 poor blind Cambodians