What is a Rotaract Club?:

Rotaract is a Rotary-sponsored service club for young men and women ages 18 to 30. Rotaract clubs can be either community or university-based, and are sponsored by local Rotary clubs. The Rotaract Club of Kowloon Golden Mile is community based.

In addition to undertaking projects to assist their local communities and to advance international understanding, Rotaractors, as club members are usually called, also engage in activities related to professional development and leadership training. 

Report from the President:

We appreciate very much the kindest support and guidance of our Mother Club, Rotary Club of Kowloon Golden Mile, in our second year. It is a real delight to see our relationship becoming closer and warmer through the various meetings and joint activities.

We are delighted to tell every one a great piece of news that our membership base is growing continuously and has enlarged to about thirty. Most of them are studying in university and a few of them are working in different fields. We are commonly interested and devoted in providing care to the less fortunate in our society through this channel, the Rotaract Club of Kowloon Golden Mile. 

Let's have a brief review of this year's activities:

Community Service: In the year 1998-1999, we have already organized some long term social services for two different charitable organizations, namely the Spastics Association of Hong Kong from December 1998 to April 1999 and the Society for the Welfare of Autistic Persons from March to early May 1999.

The Spastics Association: With the theme of "Food and Nutrition", we have organized eight indoor and outdoor activities for the adults in the Spastics Association. We aim at introducing some self-care life skills, sanitary habit and other social skills to the client. The formats of services include classroom training, lectures, supermarket visits, indoor games, and outings to Sai Kung.

The feedback from the client and the centre is extraordinarily good because most of the clients began to learn how to make sandwiches, and also learn how to put jam and peanut butter on biscuits. It is really amazing because some of them could not manage to hold a fork or knife, however, they are so cooperative that they help each other to enjoy the snack time. Moreover, they could have more opportunities to communicate with strangers and to gain more exposure to the outside world.

On the other hand, our voluntary workers also gained much from these meaningful activities.

Firstly, all of us have never served, or even do not have contacts with the Spastics beforehand and so this is really the milestone for us to expose to a new target group. More importantly, we now have the correct information and knowledge about the Spastics and begin to learn the appropriate skills to communicate with them. What's next? We are going to introduce the Spastics to our friends and our Rotary family so that they could have more understandings toward the Spastics.

Society for the Welfare of the Autistic Persons: Seven consecutive classroom training are organized for the Autistic young children, aged three to eight. We mainly teach them various life skills, such as keeping attention & discipline and having social interaction with others, because most of these pre-school children do not manage these skills well.

At the beginnings, we (a group of inexperienced youngsters) have much difficulty to handle their emotion and to keep the classroom in order, as the Autistic pre-school children don't know what "discipline" and "appropriate manner" really mean. However, we have improved over time as we gradually know what their habits are and what they want and need. Therefore, we have designed a better classroom training for them. For example, the ratio of client and voluntary worker is advised to be one to one so that more personal attention could be given. Different individual games, like handicraft and drawings; and mass games, like dancing and competition, are tailor made for them so as to attract their attention.

Through these series of regular and intensive activities, it is hoped that our voluntary workers could gradually understand what the Spastics and Autistic are and what challenges they are facing ahead in their daily life; more importantly, we could build up friendship among them. Indeed, most of our workers and even our committee members do not know much about these two target groups as we have little contacts with them before! Of course, it is really a great challenge to us, a group of green but enthusiastic organizers; however, we think that this valuable experience would definitely serve as our stepping stone to explore other types of target groups in the future despite it is effortful.

Club Service: We also have our social gatherings in different formats, like bowling, having Spring Feast & barbecue, ball games, karaoke and hiking. All these make us more cohesive and create a more comfortable atmosphere.

Professional Development: In November 1998, a vocational talk is organized with our Mother Club for secondary school students of form five and seven. Our members shared the experiences of choosing academic subjects and careers with them, and we all enjoy the afternoon very much.

In April 1999, some members also participated a vocational visit to the Hospital Authority Head Office, which is organized by our Mother Club. The health talk, exhibitions and a healthy diet make us aware of the importance of health.

International Service: We have contacted the Rotaract Clubs in Japan and India and we continued to discuss whether we have the opportunities to have delegations to these countries.

District Level: At the District level, two of our members are so fortunate that they are sponsored by our Mother Club to participate in the 14th Annual Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) Camp from 15 to 17 January 1999 at the YWCA Camp site on Lantau Island. This year, the Camp's objectives are to demonstrate Rotary's respect and concern for youths by providing quality training programs to potential young leaders. After the Camp, all our members are very interested in what our representatives have acquired from the Camp, including friendship, leadership skills, personal development and so on.

In February 1999, our members also actively participated in the Japanese delegation (R.I. District 2650, Kyoto), which was organized by the Rotaract Club of Baptist University. We invited the Japanese Rotaractors to our home to have dinner, and we also went to the New Year's Flower Fairs and other different interesting places with them. We are glad that we have not only widen our Asian exposure, but also keeping updated with the Japanese news!

Last but not the least, one of the great activities of our District, the World Rotaract Week, was recently held in February and March 1999. Exhibition, raffle ticket selling and other forms of donation had been organized to promote the image of Rotaract Club to the general public, so that they could understand what the Rotaractors are doing and what they are contributing to the society.

Yours in Service,
Solange Leung,
President,
Rotaract Club of Kowloon Golden Mile.