Thank you for visiting Rotary Albert Park's website.
Rotary Albert Park (part of Rotary International) is a group of neighbours, friends, and community leaders providing humanitarian service, encouraging high ethical standards in all pursuits and helping build goodwill and peace locally and worldwide. Our club was established in 1992 and has a long history of service. We have a membership of about 40 with a 50:50 gender balance.
Join us for Dinner where we can introduce you to the Club & its members, and answer any questions you may have about membership. For more information, click (here)
We’ve been asked to ‘project manage’ a one-off fundraiser via Wheelchair for Kids for Heroes Day Care – a facility specializing in support kids with Cystic Fibrosis in Rwanda (which is next-door to Uganda, if you aren’t familiar).
We've now kicked off our fundraiser for the Rwanda Wheelchairs for Kids project. Simply put, we're helping raise enough to cover the manufacturing and shipping costs for 166 specially designed wheelchairs to go to children with disabilities in Rwanda.
Our goal is to raise $3000, and we need your help!
If you can contribute, the fundraiser is now live at gf.me/u/zidt6n
Full details about the fundraiser, what we're doing to help and how the wheelchairs are being made and distributed is at the link above.
It would also be great if you can share this with your friends and social media.
The project is being managed by the Rotary Club of Scarborough in W.A., and we as a group have undertaken appropriate due diligence with the healthcare NGO in Rwanda.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out.
| Meetings/ Events | Wed, 17 Mar | Wed, 24 Mar | ||
Speaker | Kamal Ibrahim | Women in Rotary | DIK | Martin Murley |
Topic | OneBall | International Women's Day broadcast | Club Volunteer Night | OzChild |
Venue | Bleakhouse Hotel | Bleakhouse Hotel | 400 Somerville Rd West Footscray | Bleakhouse Hotel |
Time | 6:00 for 6:30pm start | 6:00 for 6:30pm start | TBA | 6:00 for 6:30pm start |
Kamal Ibrahim
One Ball
One Ball is a community program, supported by Rotary Albert Park, designed for children and young adults aged between (5-17 years of age). the program provides opportunities to all people especially those from cald (culturally and linguistically diverse) backgrounds across melbourne to play soccer in a social setting. The soccer-based activities, exercises and games are designed to improve the participants’ fitness and skills, develop their confidence, help them make new friends and foster their sense of belonging.
Kamal Ibrahim migrated from Ethiopia with his family in 2003 at the age of 12 to escape civil war and conflict. At that time, he spoke no English and found it difficult settling into life in Australia. He turned to his passion – soccer – as a way of communicating and connecting into his new community.
Kamal’s new life began in Port Melbourne, where he joined the local Port Melbourne Soccer Club. The club provided him with a generous opportunity – they paid for his membership registration, supplied him with his uniform, and most importantly, made him feel welcome and that he belonged.
For further information, go to https://www.oneball.org.au/
International Women's Day
We shall be broadcasting the presentation at the Bleakhouse Hotel
DIK Club Volunteer Night
Instead of our usual meeting, we will be doing a Club Volunteer night at DIK.
For more information about DIK, go to https://rotarydik.org/
Rotary Albert Park Cares - Wintringham Hostel
Thirty five aged homeless and socially insecure residents live in Port Melbourne at Wintringham Hostel. They pay 85% of their pension to live in the facility and struggle financially with hygiene products, clothes and some small items of furniture for their rooms. This club project will be filling the needs directly of the residents through a strategic partnership with Wintringham management.
Wintringham is a specialised welfare company that provides housing and care to elderly, frail men and women. The sole motivating philosophy at Wintringham is that of social justice. For more information, go to https://www.wintringham.org.au/port_melbourne_hostel.html
If you would like to help with this project, go to 
Donations above $2 are tax deductible in Australia.
Donations above $2 are tax deductible in Australia.Solar Smiles Timor Leste - Update February 2021
Despite the restrictions barring travel to Timor Leste, in country, they have still been able to proceed with the preventation part of the program. Attached (here) are some recently received photos.
If you would like to help this project, donate at All donations above $2 are tax deductible in Australia
All donations above $2 are tax deductible in AustraliaBay Street Book Stall - 2021
After our successful Book Stall in December last year, we are continuing it for this year It will be held on Saturdays in front of the Holy Trinity Church on Bay Street between 10am - 4pm. At this time, we are probably running it every two weeks.
The next Book Stall will be on Saturday, 27th February
Every dollar we raise goes back into local community projects - medical and dental support, homeless hygiene care packs, under represented sporting groups, Dolly Parton Library recipients & so much more! We have quality recent release books as well as some old time favourites in almost every genre. Starting at just $2, you can't go wrong finding that next holiday read or finding that good quality stocking filler.
Cash and Eftpos Available.
Solar Smiles Dental Foundation Melbourne - Rotary Albert Park has just been launched. This arm of Solar Smiles will be giving free dental treatment to the homeless and food insecure in and around Albert Park. We already have our first patients identified by our strategic community partner.
Now we need your help! Do you know any Dental Practice owners who would be willing, as a once off to donate the use of their surgery to our team for 9 hrs on a Sunday? Any part of Melbourne, we have donated transport available. We provide all the consumables and just need to use their instruments, equipment and steri system.
In return we will provide them with a framed Thank You photo for your wall with the amount of treatment that has been donated, so patients can see how community minded you are! Alternatively if you are a Dentist, Dental Assistant or Dental Student who would like to get involved, please just email or call me as below.
I'm so excited we are finally launching this arm of Solar Smiles!
If you would like to donate financially to this project, go to All donations above $2 are tax deductible in Australia
All donations above $2 are tax deductible in Australia
We are past the half way mark for our GG project with over 56 TT sessions completed with 2504 teachers, with the mentoring and assignment sessions in progress on Whatsapp and Google Class. As schools continue to remain closed due to Covid-19, online TT sessions are in progress (2-4 per week).
In the destitute villages of Bodhgaya region of Bihar state of India, where normal children are considered by their parents as assets and those with mental health issues as liabilities, Bodhi Tree Special School was established with a clear vision to bring about attitudinal change. The school, through its very limited resources, offers help to approximately 1,000 families, as well as assists with the sanitisation of village hutments.
If you would like to help this project, donate at All donations above $2 are tax deductible in Australia.
All donations above $2 are tax deductible in Australia.
Today we received notification that our matching grant application has been approved. As you can imagine we were delighted and very happy with the successful outcome of the joint application. This is a joint project by Melbourne South, Albert Park, Port Melbourne, Hawthorn and Malvern Rotaries.
See extract from The Alfred Newsletter (here)
Women over 50 are the fastest growing group of people experiencing housing instability in Australia – often as a result of pay inequity, little to no superannuation or savings, divorce, domestic and family violence and time taken as unpaid carers. Adequate supply of social housing and affordable housing remains an enduring issue across Australia. Currently there are more than 40,000 applicants for social housing, on the Victorian Housing Register alone.
The Lakehouse is Melbourne's first Pop Up Shelter for women in need of temporary housing. For the Study report, go to (here)
Presentation of donation of $4,500 to One Ball. For more photos, go to (here)
OneBall is a free community program designed for young people aged between 8-18 years. The program provides opportunities for young people from CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse) backgrounds across Melbourne to play soccer in a social setting and encourages them to:
- be fit and active, and to enhance both their physical and psychological health and wellbeing
- develop positive cross-cultural relationships with others, and
- feel more connected and empowered to make a positive contribution to their community.
Presentation of $1,000 to Geoff Amor to support Orange Sky Laundry, see https://orangesky.org.au/where-we-are/melbourne/
Great District Working Bee at the Rotary Park in St Kilda, see (here)
This park is now in the planning process for a redevelopment in the new year
The shortage of emergency response vehicles is a serious problem being faced in the Western Cape, South Africa, with the numerous fires that need to be contended with. The lack of vehicles often leads to emergency services taking up to 40 minutes to arrive at disaster scenes, especially in more remote areas. It goes without saying that the vital lost time can literally mean the difference between life and death. With the help of Rotary Albert Park, The Rotary Club of Newlands were able to donate a multipurpose vehicle to the Emergency Volunteer Services (EVS).
Below are some stories and video of the project:
Rotary Albert Park runs a book recycling project where it collects books from local libraries and from direct donations, sort, redistributes and sell them in various ways (including on-line) to benefit the community. On the third Saturday of each month at the Farmers Market at Gasworks Park (weather permitting) we have a wide selection of these recycled books for sale. We are located at the back of Priscilla Jones' Cafe in Graham Street, Albert Park.
We also hold a book store on Saturdays in front of the Holy Trinity Church on Bay Street.
For more information on our book recycling project, go to (here)
Other Media Pages
The club is also on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & Instagram. There are often additional posts entered by members and by other clubs, and it is a great way to get notified of events and functions.
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