International

The International work of the club is aimed at improving health, welfare and education. In the latter case being particularly concerned with improving female education. A few of our projects are described below.

Drinking Water in Ghana
The two videos on the left show the before and after stages in a project to provide drinking water to a village in Ghana.
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The drivers derive from our own town’s history. The first drinking fountain in Loughborough that provided clean water dates from 1870 and this year, ~150 years later, we are completing the drilling of a well at a village in Ghana. Last year we funded the building of 15 household latrines in the same village, to improve sanitation before drilling of the well. Additionally, whenever there is a disaster in the world, we send Aquafilters to aid organisations to enable untreated water to become drinkable.

​Loughborough High School, founded in 1850, is believed to be one of the country's oldest grammar schools for girls, which in part is how our interest in equality of female education arises. In the past we have set up a children's library in Kenya and bought books for a school in South Sudan in both cases helping both boys and girls.

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In northern Ghana we recently provided a seamstress box to help a selected recipient to receive training and set up a business for herself. A woman in Africa with a family has a difficult task in bringing up her children unless she finds a way of earning and this gift, one of the Trade Aid Boxes, helps. We don’t ignore men however; this year we have sent a mechanic’s Trade Aid box to a site in Malawi.

Since 1985 Rotary International has worked to eradicate polio from the world. In 1985 there were 350,000 cases per year, by 2015 there were just 27. During the period our club submitted over £40,000 to Rotary’s worldwide effort.