On Higher Ground
Area Rotarians prepare for an epic climb to promote a life-saving cause
by Mike Savicki

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Flaviu Simihaian hopes the new Rotary-funded computer lab in his former middle school in Romania will provide a lot more than just educational enrichment for its 640 students.

He also hopes it’ll give them a sense of pride that too many Romanians lack. “They now have one of the most modern facilities in the world,” he said after the recent installation of 20 networked iMac i5 computers at the Scoala Generala Mihai Eminescu in Nasaud, Romania.

Ten years ago Simihaian graduated from that school. Then at age 14 he moved to America to compete on the tennis court for Cannon School in Concord and then Davidson College. He earned a degree in software design from UNC Charlotte, and has been employed in that university’s IT department for the past two years.

Simihaian also earned his American citizenship and joined the University City Rotary Club, currently serving as treasurer. He recognized that his ties to Romania could facilitate an international service project that could prepare Romanian students for technology careers. So he secured a partnership with the Bistrita Rotary club near Nasaud, where his father is currently president, and began raising funds last July. In four months he had commitments for $9,500 from clubs in District 7680 and the Bistrita club and, and that grew to $35,000 with matching grants from the district and Rotary International.

The project included purchase from a Romanian vendor of the 20 Apple computers, networking infrastructure with a 24-port gigabit switch, one Apple Mini Server, white board, 40 computer manuals, and two days of training for the school’s entire teaching staff and several influential parents.

Each machine runs both the Macintosh and Windows 7 operating systems. Each is loaded with Office, i-Works, i-Life, an internet browser and Google Earth. Simihaian believes the software will provide opportunities for educational enrichment for students at every grade level.

The school administration erected a plaque on the computer center’s door that credits Rotary and Simihaian for its installation. The administration also committed to letting every student in the school use a computer for at least an hour a week, and to conduct summer sessions in the lab, allow full access to all teachers, provide after-hours access to students in a computer club, and incorporate the Mac OS platform into the teaching curriculum. Simihaian also left the facility in good hands, with a technically savvy school administrator and the equipment vendor assigned to maintenance.

Simihaian traveled to Romania for a week in early June to oversee the installation. He wrote about the project beforehand on Romanian web sites, and several Apple computer fans in the country volunteered to help. “Apple hasn’t got a very big presence in Romania, so the prospect of the modern facility and latest equipment raised a lot of excitement,” Simihaian said.

After setting up the computers and network, a grand opening was held on June 10. It was a high profile event, attracting city hall representatives, the clergy, the school principal and other school administrators. Nearly a dozen media outlets covered the event, recognizing a good story in the hometown Romanian boy’s return from America to help children in his former middle school.

He’s hoping the new lab will inspire Romanians to their own acts of philanthropy, and give them a new sense of pride in their country. He confessed, “Romanians have an inferiority complex. Many of them believe things are only good if they come from America or Western Europe. They believe things from Romania are inherently inferior. The installation of this totally modern lab by Rotary will hopefully help show it doesn’t have to be that way.”

The good work of two members of the Rotary Club of Gastonia East was highlighted on page 12 of the April edition of “The Rotarian” magazine.

Carlos Vargas and Benson Timmons began traveling to Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 2006 to treat children at a burn center there. Every year since, Vargas, a retired radiologist originally from Bolivia, and Timmons, a reconstructive surgeon, have made the trip with a team of surgeons and residents from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

The ten-member team conducted 199 procedures on 34 children in the ten days it worked in Cochabamba in 2010. More than 500 procedures have been performed over the course of five years.

Still, Timmons said, the team can’t keep up with the demand. “Many wait two to three years before we get to them. These are procedures not available to them otherwise.”

The project is a partnership between the Gastonia East club, which helps fund supplies and travel expenses, and the Rotary Club of Cochabamba, which provides housing and meals to the team while on site, and the nonprofits Partners of the Americas and Burn Care International.

A Belmont Rotarian's life-changing trip to Ethiopia has led her club to commit to a life-saving project there. The club is donating $5,000 to finance construction of a well that will provide about 250 people in a small Ethiopian village with clean drinking water.

Emily Queen, who served then as International Services Officer for the Belmont Rotary Club, traveled to Ethiopia on mission trips with her Forest Pointe Church for the past two summers. Her group made contact there with a missionary, Joe Harding, who introduced them to his daughter and her husband, Kelly and Ben Taylor, who were working there with a nonprofit organization called "Water Is Life International." That group's mission is providing safe water to impoverished communities throughout Ethiopia.  Among other projects they undertook in Ethiopia, Forest Pointe Church contributed money for a well in that arid, southern part of the country.

Queen noted the urgency of the situation by pointing out that more than 59 million Ethiopians do not have access to safe water. Waterborne diseases such as diarrhea kill more than 2.3 million people annually worldwide, including about 74,000 Ethiopian children under the age of five.

The lack of immediate access to clean water has other consequences as well. Ethiopian women and children spend hours carrying water from distant sources, and children are often absent or drop out of school due to that duty and constant water-related illnesses that can lead to decreased cognitive ability and attention deficit.

Queen was shocked by the situation, and returned from her second trip determined that the Belmont Rotary Club should commit to a well-drilling project. She and Pastor Ray Hardee made a presentation to club members last fall about her trip and the desperate need for clean water in that part of the world. Club president Bill Stetzer and the fundraising committee had initial concerns about the project because the $5,000 price tag was a large amount for a small club. Members also recognized that many worthy projects in the local community deserved the help as much as the one across the ocean.

However, the committee eventually decided to fund the well, and stepped up its fundraising efforts to meet the need for more revenue. A successful downtown beer and wine crawl provided the bulk of the money needed, and general club funds covered the rest.

Queen is sending funds this month to Water Is Life, and construction on a well for the village of Robe should begin shortly. Queen said the village has never received development aid in the past, and she expects the well will be one of the most beneficial gifts imaginable. In addition to hiring local citizens to help with construction, Water Is Life will also teach villagers how to care for the well and the importance of sanitation.

The project has also had a life-changing impact on Queen. She is now on a leave of absence from the club as she returns to school to earn a bachelor's degree in nursing.  She explained, "My descision to leave my previous career and go into the medical profession is in large part due to the life changing experiences that I have had in Ethiopia."

To learn more about the work in Ethiopia of Ben and Kelly Taylor, visit http://benjaminandkelly.com/