Visit to Wilanow
Last week President Bendt and Past President Bob paid a visit to RC Wilanów. Our purposes were two-fold: first, to renew contact with one of the only three clubs in the District which remain officially English-speaking (the others being our club and the one in Szczecin); and second, to review their proposal for a Rotary Foundation grant sponsored project in Uganda. This project has been described in past meetings and messages, but in brief aims to restore the Polish historical sites in the village of Nyabyeya where Poles associated with the evacuated Anders army were settled during WWII. We thought that having run two successful Foundation grant programs in Africa it would be helpful to them for us to share our experience in that regard. Bendt provided a lot of information about the process of application for the grant, and our experience with the details and time frame involved. Bob described our own projects in Kenya and the Lesotho region of South Africa with strong emphasis on the need to establish clear and direct contacts on the ground in the place or places the project is to run with a view to keeping tight control of funds disbursed. We feel that in order to have a grant approved concrete plans to assure full transparency and to maximize the percentage of the grant money getting to the end user is critical. The reception from the members of the Wilanów club was very warm and friendly. They expressed a desire to continue to work together on this and perhaps other matters, and that our sharing of experiences and suggestions were really what they were hoping for at this stage of the project.
Robert Powel
Past President
President Bendt Haverberg and President R. André Chiaradia