Posted by Sam McCurdy:
Ron Brooks from the Rotary Club of Forest Hill was our guest speaker at Wednesday's Club meeting.
Ron is Co-ordinator of the 'Foreign coin collection for UNICEF' project run by District 9810 (soon to be joined with District 9820 as District 9815).
UNICEF is the world's largest organisation working to protect and improve the lives of vulnerable children in over 190 countries. It supports children's health needs, clean water and sanitation, quality basic education, and protection from violence, exploitation, and HIV.
Their goals align with those of the Zone 8 Centenary project 'Give Every Child A future', https://everychildafuture.com, which aims to immunise 100,000 of the most disadvantaged children and adolescent girls across the Pacific. Therefore, Rotary is working in conjunction with UNICEF to raise funds through the coin collection, to support their work.
Each Rotary Club involved needs a Champion to coordinate the collection from donors. When enough has been collected, Ron visits the Club to collect and sort the coins and paper money.
He provided an amusing anecdote on some of the things he has found in some collections, such as shopping trolley tokens, single ear rings and badges.
When sorted, the coins and notes are sent off in 60kg batches in 6 x 10kg pouches, which UNICEF organise to have valued by Change Global Exchange who pay for all the transport.
UNICEF then provide feedback to Ron on the value of each batch delivered.
Since the project started in 2016, over $25,000 has been raised by Clubs, at no cost to Rotary.
Where appropriate, the coins and paper money collected are eventually re-introduced to the relevant country's currency.
This was an interesting presentation on a project that the Club should become involved in.