AN ENVISIONED GLOBAL GRANT FOR A MOBILE EYE TESTING UNIT
Handover of Mobile Eye Testing Bus
Graeme Woolacott - for everything there is a beginning and the beginning of this project I am going to talk upon was just a little bit different, because of the fact that Jill and I were in Bali in May last year at the combined District 3420 with D3310 Singapore. DGE Dyah of D3420 asked if we could assist with a Global Grant seeing that we had been involved with 3 others with the RC of Semarang Kunthi. I asked what and how much, it was to be a mobile eye testing unit and the cost would be about US$58,000.00
The Global Grant was lodged, signatures attached, questions answered and in a very short period of time the approval came through. Lodged late November 2025, approved 12th December 2025 and the payment of $64878 was paid across on the 11th February 2026. The grant had increased in value because of upskilling and training of primary care givers to carry out intervention prior to testing in the mobile unit.
The handover took place after the District Conference which was held in Magalang which is about an hour drive North from Yogyakarta. For your information, we did a couple of projects with the RC of Yogyakarta prior to and after the 2004 Tsunami.
The William Booth Hospital in Semarang was the venue for the handover on the 11th of May. I have already been asked if we would/could support another Global Grant for next Rotary year, which may be for another cervical cancer testing unit. The one that we were involved in last year is so over worked and cannot keep up with the demand, so much so that it was doing tests on the forecourt of the hospital while the eye unit was being handed over.
A GREAT PROJECT THAT SHALL ACHIEVE AN ENORMOUS AMOUNT OF GOOD WITH MANAGING AVOIDABLE BLINDNESS WITH SYSTEMATIC TESTING OF YOUNG PEOPLE AND FAMILIES IN AND AROUND SEMARANG.
• THE 9TH MOST POPULOUS CITY IN INDONESIA. THE SEMARANGMETROPOLITAN AREA
HAS A POPULATION OF OVER 6 MILLION PEOPLE.
• MY SINCERE THANKS GO TO THE HOST CLUB, THE ROTARY CLUB OF MONASH GLEN WAVERLEY, AND TO THE SUPPORTING CLUBS WHO MADE THIS GLOBAL GRANT POSSIBLE.
• IT WOULD BE WAYWARD OF ME NOT TO THANK THE DISTRICT FOUNDATION COMMITTEE WITHOUT WHOSE SUPPORT THE OVERALL PROJECT WOULD HAVE BEEN A NO-NO.
THANK YOU ALL -
