Rotary Friendship Exchange

Posted by Gary Lord 
 
Read the report back in the Copenhagen Rotary Club's weekly newsletter about the recent Rotary Friendship Exchange between Denmark, South Africa and Botswana.  Nine Rotarians from three clubs in Denmark participated in the exchange.
 
Our Club played a significant part in this Friendship Exchange and all credit goes to Rtn Barry Evans and his team for a well organised and interesting Botswana tour.
As it was mentioned in the weekly newsletter at the end of October, Niels Ruddy and me from our club went to South Africa and Botswana with nine Rotarians from three other district clubs.


We were invited by the district down there as thanks for our contribution of 6 containers of toys and a Mobile Clinicdonated by Rotary Copenhagen this spring. Container and shipping was donated by Maersk and we received a MeritAward in gratitude for this.

We visited a school in Soweto district on a Saturday morning, where we shared the toys out to 500 happy and excitedchildren. It caused great excitement. We also visited Witkoppen Hospital Center, which treats 400 patients daily.From this center our Mobile Clinic is working, which we proudly inspected.

We lived privately with 4 Rotary families in 4 cities, including one in the country Botswana.. We attended the Rotaryclub meetings, and they had organized an exciting program with visits from their many projects, school andorphanage. - In addition, we visited a 1.3 km deep platinum mine, was on safari, museum, and picnic and barbecueevents.

After having been an active Rotarian for 34 years, it was a great experience and I personally
are proud that we in Copenhagen Rotary meets our vision - Service Above Self

 

Niels Jørgen Frank

 

 

Rtn Barry Evans who headed the Botswana orgabizing team reported as follows -

 

Our Danish visitors were 11 in number made up of 3 couples and 5 singles. They were accompanied by a Rotarian and partner from Pretoria West Club who provided their transport. They were hosted by Rotarians from both the Rotary Club of gaborone and the Rotary Club of Gaborone Tirelo.

The program was as follows:

Fri 4th

Rotary Lunch

Chat with Ex Rotarian and current Danish Consul, Leif Bekker.

Sundowner at the Yacht Club.

Despite the lack of sun the evening proved to be a good way to mix with our visitors and to get to know each other. Certainly the venue overlooking the dam was appreciated by our guests.

 

Sat 5th

Visited our project at Mochudi Resource Centre for blind children. MRC were well organised as usual and the children were well presented in white shirts. The children sang several songs that turned out to be very emotional particularly when they sang “Rotary we love you”.

Sat evening proved to be the highlight of the weekend. Game drive, bush braai and traditional dancing. The traditional dancers were keen to get the Danish visitors also dancing and that was well received and recorded by a band of photographers. I’m pleased to say that we outnumbered the visitors.

 

Sun 6th

A visit to the museum in the morning was optional but most took the opportunity.

The Kopong braai organised by PP Bill Mc, Chris (team members) and PP John Mc was well attended and most enjoyable, and is now becoming a popular spot for one of our club’s social events.

 

Mon 7th

An early visit to Diamond Park organised by Itamar was a popular choice. This was also the time for our hosts to say goodbye to our Danish Friendship Exchange visitors.

 

Rtn Barry Evans