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The Theme for 2025-2026 is "Unite for Good"
ISIPHO – SOUTH AFRICA - Supporting Education
Our student for the last 3 years, supported by RCMB and District 9423 Grants Program, has been Ms Nokuthula “Thully” Sophangisa. She has now graduated and Christine Stewart and Larry Schneider acted as referees for her applications. We have just been informed that she has gained a role at Netbank.
RESEARCH STUDENT - JAPAN - Supporting Education
From March 2023 - March 2025 RCMB hosted Dr Kazuaki OKINO from Kanazawa Ishikawa in Japan. He spent two years at the Harry Perkins Institute for Medical Research in Perth collaborating on a project to develop novel therapeutic agents for fibrotic peritonitis in patients with renal failure.
This provided RCMB with a mutually beneficial relationship with the Rotary Club of Toyama-Mirai.
FUTURE FOUNDATIONS - HYDERABAD, INDIA - Supporting Education
Future Foundations in Hyderabad, India is a privately run and managed by Prashanth Kumar Khanthi and his wife Aparanji. They receive no Government funding. Future Foundations (aka Angel Orphanage) was created to provide a home for orphans whose extended families are unwilling or unable to care for them after their parents’ deaths. They take care of 33 children from 7 to 14 years. We have previously supported them with good quality second-hand books and food assistance during Covid-19. This year RCMB donated $500 as a contribution towards school fees.
SUMBA - Fighting disease
RCMB made a donation of $5,000 to Water Connections & Malaria Prevention Project, East Sumba, Indonesia, that is sponsored by the Rotary Club of Mandurah Districts. John Kevan of RC Mandurah visited RCMB and presented the project that provides clean water and mosquito protection to six villages who struggle under poor conditions. It is monitored locally by a reliable NGO (Fair Future Foundation) and its finance is monitored through Rotary Australia World Community Service.
In addition, RCMB members were joined by RC Mandurah members to check 200 Solar Buddy lights that had been assembled in Karratha. These have been sent to Sumba to provide solar powered lights to enable children in villages without power to read and do homework at night.
OUTREACH EYE CARE PROJECT - with Global Hand Charity and Rotary, Sri Lanka and Cambodia - fighting disease
In 2025, 17 Australian optometrists and local volunteers visited underserved poor communities in Sri Lanka. They reviewed 2,347 individuals with vision screening and provided 3,343 pairs of free recycled spectacles and 800+ pairs of recycled sunglasses. Since 2019 RCMB members have collected over 3,300 pairs of used spectacles that are sent to Acacia Prison where the prisoners clean, fix and grade the spectacles for donation to Eye Care outreach. In 2024-25 members have donated a further 400 pairs of spectacles.
Unfortunately, the lensometer used to grade the spectacles had been destroyed. RCMB was happy to be able to donate $600 for a new lensometer to allow the grading of the spectacles to resume.
Global Hand Charity sent videos of their most recent visit and said: “Your contribution of the Lensometer and the recycled specs allowed us to take these glasses for these people … By restoring their vision, we hope to have transformed lives, allowing children to pursue education, farmers to continue working, and families to experience a better quality of life”.
BIRTHING KIT FOUNDATION OF AUSTRALIA - fighting disease
The Birthing Kit Foundation (Australia) is a humanitarian organisation that provides birthing kits and education in clean birthing practices to women birthing at home in remote regions of the developing world. On 21st June 2025 RCMB members packed the Clean Birth Kits, which are supplied to pregnant women living in rural communities and low-resource settings around the world.
WHEELCHAIRS FOR KIDS
Wheelchairs for Kids manufactures wheelchairs that are delivered to 75 countries via aid agencies. The wheelchairs are then individually adjusted to suit the recipient. So far over 50,000 wheelchairs have been made. RCMB has donated $1,100 that will fund 4 wheelchairs.
POLIO PLUS
By far the largest project ever undertaken by Rotary is the eradication of Polio. We are close to eradicating a human disease for only the second time in history.
Poliomyelitis is a highly infectious disease that most commonly affects young children, under the age of 5. The virus is spread person-to-person, typically through contaminated water. It can attack the nervous system, and in some instances, lead to paralysis. Although there is no cure, there is a safe and effective vaccine – one which Rotary and our partners used to immunize over 2.5 billion children worldwide.
Through a global public-private partnership we have reduced the poliovirus caseload by 99.9% over the last 30 years, but there’s still plenty of work to do. Fewer than 22 children were paralysed by polio in 2017, the lowest number in history. This is a dramatic decrease from the estimated 350,000 cases per year in 125 countries that the world saw in 1985 - the year that Rotary International initiated a worldwide effort to eradicate this terrible disease.
In 1988, Rotary was joined in the effort by WHO, the U.S. Center for Disease Control, UNICEF (and more recently the Gates Foundation) to create the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). Today the virus is limited to a few areas in just a few countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mozambique.
More information is available at the EndPolioNow website https://www.endpolio.org/
SHELTERBOX
ShelterBox is an official project partner with Rotary International and provides emergency shelter in disaster areas globally. Over the last 22 years, ShelterBox has provided emergency shelter and disaster relief in 97 different countries. In that time, it has supported families to get back on their feet after hurricanes, earthquakes, conflicts, droughts, cyclones and more.
RCMB donated $1,000 to ShelterBox to fund one Shelterbox. More information at https://www.shelterboxaustralia.com.au/index.php