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Welcome to our Club
Salem
Service Above Self
We meet Tuesdays at 12:15 PM
Hawthorne Hotel
18 Washington Square
Salem, MA  01970
United States
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Stories

FINES AND RECOGNITIONS
 
 
Jason Consalvo paid for the last TWO Patriots victories.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Paul Herrick and his wife, Danika, celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rich Eisner reported that his son's youth hockey team improved to 5-3.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
John Fisher was in San Antonio for an American Dental Association conference.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Dick Moore shared that the Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle featured a picture of him at the Topsfield Fair... Dick is available for autographs.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
John Neely recognized Randy Burba for fixing the tooth of last week's speaker.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Brenda Smith served as a judge (with Claudia Chuber) at the Halloween kid's parade.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Betsye Sargent shared that the Early Act students at the Phoenix School sent a check for Randy Burba's dental mission in Jamaica.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Viktoria Talebian is collecting calendar money.  She also shared that her son won the Quest for Excellence award given by Swampscott Rotary.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Patty Pace's daughter is running her first half marathon this weekend in Newburyport.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND CLUB BUSINESS
 
Jane Lundregan, wife of Bill, passed away last Saturday.
 
The Rotary Christmas party will be on December 5th.  Details to follow.
 
 

THIS WEEK'S SPEAKER
 
The speaker this week was author Gem Munro who has dedicated that last 11+ years of his life to the expansion of a ground-level education system in the city slums of Bangladesh.
 
Bangladesh, statistically the poorest country in the world, is described by Gem as "the poorest of the poor" and "the worst of the worst."  The brutally impoverished living environment hosts millions of children who cannot and do not attend any kind of school.  Gem explained to the group that a conventional education development plan of building schools, hiring teachers, and bringing in local children simply cannot work in this environment.  However, the community cannot self-develop without educating its children.  This is why Gem has made it his life's work to build an organic educational system where he, his family, and staff at the Amarok Society teach slum mothers one-by-one, who, in exchange, commit to teaching 5 children in the respective schools, which are their own homes.  Homes pieced together by boards, plastic and tarps.  We saw this in an impressive short video which shows a young mother who learns to read in just 7 months.
 
The alternative approach to teaching children also has a clear benefit to the slum mothers who learn English, simple mathematics, health and hygiene, social studies, and conflict resolution.  Some mothers also share with their husbands, which is a truly innovative notion in a dominantly Muslim community.  The subject of health, particularly birth control, is incredibly important in a nation that is the most densely populated in the world.  Teaching the history of Bangladesh is also important as the nation is currently moderately Muslim, however, fear and desperation make the city slum communities at risk of influence by well funded extremists.  Gem feels this is exactly why the children of the slums need to learn from the countries past mistakes.
 
This is a slow growing program but has been very successful.  If you would like to learn more about Gem Munro or purchase his book to help fund this project please visit his website at http://amaroksociety.org/wordpress/.
 
 
Read more...

Please email all announcements to be added to The Spoke to SalemRotaryClub@yahoo.com by noon on Wednesday.  Also, feel free to contact any of the committee members listed below.

Committee Chairperson and Editor:  Dave Wescott
Photographers:  Trip Mason and Juli Lederhaus

Committee Members:  Patrick Langmaid, Juli Lederhaus, Joanne Scott and Amy Delaney