Ang Magiting - The Official Web Site of Rotary Club Makati North

AN EVENTFUL NEW YEAR!

The Week That Was
January 7, 2009
By: Dir. Bob Hecks

Yes, very much so if the first meeting of 2009 is a guide. Pres. Klink, in his longest President’s Time, covered about a dozen topics, some looking back in thanks, but mostly looking forward to our many Rotary objectives which we intend to achieve in the second half of Rotary Year 2008/09. We welcomed former member Dr. Iwan Soetjahja as guest speaker about “Health Development as a Technological System in Life,” and displayed on-screen some first-class photographs of Club activities over the long end-of-year break.

Progress at our Gawad Kalinga village “Ave Maria” at Tanay, Rizal was featured, as Pres. Klink thanked all those who took part in the working visit on December 13. Indeed, so many people helped that it was not easy to find work for all of them, said PE Vic Austria, who recommended more careful pre-planning before our next visit. The number of participants on the day was much increased because PE Vic recruited some of his company’s staff and Pres. Klink brought students from the Manila Times School of Journalism. The visit was reported in ‘Ang Magiting’, January 7.

Similarly shown on the screen and in ‘Ang Magiting’ was the Christmas party at F. Benitez Main Primary School to deliver the “Christmas Gift Wish List”.

We welcomed back Chris Bellinger from holiday. He reminded us of our May 22 appointment to celebrate our 36th Anniversary which will of course also be the occasion of “Cabaret” to raise funds for “Operation Smile”. “I will be campaigning for raffle prizes and door prizes.” he said. Our meeting on February 4 also features “Operation Smile”, which organizes surgery to correct hare-lip deformities, particularly children.

Iwan presented to us the Health All Development International (HADI) Foundation, of which he is President. A former RCMN member, he is an expert in Public Health, following a career in academe in Indonesia and with the World Health Organization, Western Pacific Region.

The HADI Foundation works for the survival of mankind and the improvement of the welfare of the people, the health development concept. HADI believes that the world’s economic systems are unsuited to the task of developing the health and wellbeing of the people. The HADI solution is to use the health development system as the objective of all activities in life, thereby involving all sectors to work everywhere for the development of health living conditions. Quoting from a Manila Times article in 2002: “Wealthy people can live health sophisticated lifestyles; less wealthy people can also live healthy lifestyles that are simple, and both can have the same quality of good health.”