Project HAND UP - Using Puppets to Teach Health Education
This Meeting's Highlights
Program: Project HAND UP - Using Puppets to Teach Health EducationSpeaker: Darren CollinsMeeting for the week of June 6th to June 12th, 2016
Is this your first time to visit us? If so, welcome to our meeting!Each Monday our week’s meeting is posted early in the morning, U.S. Pacific Time. These meetings are designed so that you can read and watch what we post anytime during the week. The entire meeting takes about 45 minutes to complete, with the video conference recording of the program being the bulk of the time.Note that you can easily read this meeting with your favorite device, so feel free to take our meeting on the go with you; read it while on public transit, waiting in line for coffee, or even at the park! Please also make sure to complete the attendance form at the bottom and leave a comment. Enjoy!
Welcome Members & Guests!
Message from our Club President
Greetings, everyone!Last Saturday morning, a group of us connected online for a little social time, and I was reminded yet again of what a wonderful group of people we have in our club.What did we talk about? Most came down to the prompt, "What have you been up to?"Andrew has been gardening on his patio in Oakland. Ferheen has been studying intensively for her exams in her graduate program in Osaka. Brian has been fielding questions from those who contacted him after he won his case at the appellate level in California. Yvonne and Mitty were in Hong Kong with other Rotaractors following the international convention in South Korea. I spent several days working with teachers in Arkansas. Chris and Mark were probably doing cool things, but connected after I left the half-hour hangout, and I didn't hear whassup.One of the very best things about any Rotary club is the chance to connect with others who not only have a heart for service, but who are willing to join with others to make great things happen in their communities.When the next online social rolls around, we hope you'll take part, too!Rotarian guests, we ask that you consider contributing something - whatever for you is the regular cost of a Rotary meal, perhaps - to the efforts of our club. Please choose one of the options below:
Send via our secure Happy Dollars form.
Send via PayPal.
Send via Google Wallet* to: ecsv.rotary@gmail.com
Send via check to the mailing address, below.
* To pay via Google Wallet, you’ll need to log in to your account to donate.Those of you who prefer a more traditional approach can mail a check made out to the Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley to our treasurer: ℅ Allen Thompson, 13500 Cascade Ct., Bakersfield CA 93314.Non-Rotarian guests, there is no need for a donation from you. As we see it, your job is to simply enjoy what you read and watch, though at the end we do ask that you let us know you were here and also leave a comment letting us know what you think. This club is loaded with folks who love sharing ideas, and we look forward to your sharing yours!
Yours in service,
Rushton Hurley,
President
Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley
The Power of Images
An image can capture a story or a possibility in wonderful and powerful ways, and we share one or more great images each week in the hope that it will inspire something for you!
Our club's Camera Czar, Keith Marsh, shares this shot from Havana:"Here is a photo from Havana that I took early one morning along the Malecon. These fishermen were lined up along the wall and chatting away as they fished. I took a regular shot, but cropped it to a panorama and then converted it to B&W in Nik Silver Efex (now owned by Google)."
The Power of Ideas
A good thought can inspire us to act in cool and innovative ways, and so we share quotes each week that we think might be inspiring to you.
Finding ways to capture a swath of life in a single observation is something we seek to share in this section.American columnist Doug Larson made this observation, which might connect the image above with what you'll see in the video below.If people concentrated on the really important things in life, there'd be a shortage of fishing poles.- Doug LarsonSpend some time today concentrating on what's really important. It may well not be whatever is taking up so much of your time.
The Power of Family
We all go through times when it's harder to be positive, when it's hard to see where the positive will happen next. Is there someone close to you who is living that pain now?What might you do to reach out and connect?
For Our Club Members: Reminders
Semi-annual Dues
You will hear from Treasurer Allen very soon (if you haven't already done so), so please plan to respond quickly to our his message about dues for July to December.
Our Events & Projects
We hold our meetings online, but we hold regular service projects and social events in the Silicon Valley every month! This section is updated every week with our upcoming events. We welcome guests to all of our events and service projects listed here. Also be sure to join our Meetup Group!
Recap of Recent Events:
Tech-Enabled Fellowship
Our club does what one might call traditional service events (supporting schools, mentoring young people, environmental cleanups, etc.) in Silicon Valley. Our members also work in big and small ways to create possibilities for others in their individual communities around the world. We do video conference mentoring of entrepreneurs. And as you can see, we work to make sure there are quality online and flexible options for Rotarians around the world looking to make up meetings.We also take time in person and online to have fun! We try to have in-person socials at least once a month, and every other month or so, we'll do small, online gatherings of members to hear what people have been up to and what they're excited about going forward. They use the same system (Google Hangouts) we use for our programs, and they're good fun!Last Saturday was our most recent social. At this point, Service Chair Andrew Taw was generating some serious philosophical awesomeness about gardening.If there is something you want to see happen or explored, sing out! We're always into having our members find ways to build cool efforts that make the world a better place.
Kudos to Us!
As noted above, we work to provide a strong meeting to any Rotarian needing something flexible to keep that weekly connection to Rotary going. Well, this week or next, we'll pass the 300 reported visits mark since we launched in January of 2015. That's 129 different visitors (as of this writing) getting to know our club and its work.We get many more visitors than that (according to other reports), but those visitors don't always do the attendance survey letting us know. It's important to us that we find ways to share inspiration, and always hope folks will give us the chance to send them a thanks.Thanks to all in the club who have contributed content, ideas, and comments, along with sharing the link to our meetings with others. Let's keep our good work going, and do what we can to make it even better!
For Our Members: "Min-e-Grants"
This section is for club members only. We offer $250 grants for our club members to request for a service project members want to start up in their local community. We encourage this seed money as a way to get more collaboration and other organizations involved to make a positive impact locally.
If you know an honorable organization making good things happen in the community, and it’s one you try and put time into yourself, and you can find another Rotary club or other organization to match it, you can apply to the club for a grant of up to $250 to help with their work. For the full details and instructions on applying, visit the link below. Please note that this is only open to members of the club.
Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Min-e-Grants
For Our Members: Service Survey
This section is dedicated for our members to report to us what service projects they have participated in recently. We love giving shoutouts to our members for the good work and the impact they’ve made in their local communities.
It's that time! At the beginning of each month, we share what our members have been doing in the world of service. Hopefully, what you read below will inspire you to see a new opportunity to help someone in need in the coming weeks!Since early May:
Nate Gildart has been working with HOPE International Development Agency Japan to secure a donated sound system that'll be free to use for artists putting on fundraising events in the Kanto area. He characterizes it this way: "Some messages, meetings, and document revising. Nothing too strenuous. Pretty happy we've secured this though. There are venues without equipment that would like to put on service programs, and now they'll have it." Nate also helped put on a multi-band, multi-city event for a mental health care and suicide prevention NPO called TELL. "With outstanding help from a new TELL employee in Kansai we managed to get around 45 artists and bands play in 4 cities across Japan's main island, Honshu. It's been in the works for 18 months." Here's some press on the effort!
Ferheen Abbasi (also in Japan) volunteered at a Band Night/Fundraiser for the suicide prevention/mental health care NPO called TELL described above.
François Tessier journeyed back to Sri Lanka to create the Sri Lankan Chapter of the Ayubowan Foundation. In this trip, he contributed to creating a business model for a new Rehabilitation Center where the residents will become coconut producers and will sell their production to a coconut water and oil manufacturer to generate revenue.
Martin Fox put it time doing pro-bono consulting and nonprofit board service, what he calls, "really, really cool stuff :-)"
Richard Knaggs helped launch robotics training at less fortunate schools. Richard also donated money for ten homeless people to get a night at a shelter.
Gene Tognetti evaluated projects done by female students for Technovation Challenge (girls creating apps to solve community issues), and then helped judge the competition later in the month.
Yvonne Kwan, Deepali Mehrotra, Mitty Chang, and Rushton Hurley helped sort through 24,000 pounds (!!!) of oranges at Second Harvest Food Bank.
Linda Diekman put in dozens of hours mentoring teachers as they pursue National Board Certification.
Keith Marsh worked with board members on a possible merger with another non-profit serving the more fragile members of our society.
Rushton Hurley connected with educators in Iowa (via a Google Hangout) to share ideas on how to reach more students using technology.
Allen Thompson (our treasurer) and his boxer, Molly, visited patients at San Joaquin Community Hospital, and also helped with a fundraiser for the Burn Center there. It was the "5 Alarm Barbeque" that attracted thousands of hungry patrons over a 4-hour period. "It may come as no surprise to some that I handled the money," he notes.
Such good stuff, and that's just what got reported! We know that more members were involved in service activities, and are hoping to get word from them on what they've been up to and share it with the group. Let's keep inspiring each other!Please get an early start on reporting your June service by responding to the survey below today.
The Rotary eClub of Silicon Valley Service Survey
Happy Dollars
Happy Dollars is the segment of our meeting where anyone can choose to make a voluntary donation to tell us a short story about something good that has happened to them this past week. Maybe someone paid for your coffee, gave you a ride somewhere, or you got a job promotion.
Why do member toss in a few dollars to our efforts with a Happy Dollar donation? That's to share good news and get to know each other better, to recognize that our service efforts are worthy of the support, and because it's fun! Can we get news from you for next week?member Ferheen Abbasi ($10)I had to sacrifice many mice today and it was pretty tough emotionally so I want to donate in their honor. Thank you mice for helping me with my experiment! RIPmember Brian Liddicoat ($15)My son just graduated to the top level of Cub Scouts ("Webelos 2") and will head for Boy Scouts next year. It's been five wonderful years of "I hate cub scouts, I want to quit!" followed days later by "I can't wait to go to the next Cub Scout event!". But we're still here. Thus ever was parenting.member Gene Tognetti ($10)A bit of self-congratulation acknowledging my joy completing my Master of Educational Technology degree from Boise State University. Whew - done!member Linda Tangren ($15)In order of our camera czar, who made the cover of Rotary.guest Caleb LaPlante ($5)I had a great time following the Rotary Convention in Seoul last week on Twitter. The #Rotary16 hashtag was chalk full of quotes from speakers and pictures of breakout sessions and social events. It was a hoot. I'll be in Atlanta next year for the 2017 Convention... my first. Maybe I'll meet some of you all there?member Richard Knaggs ($10)Four Parklands College ladies will hopefully be heading to Silicon Valley for the Technovate World Pitch event, as a visiting team, after winning the South African leg of the competition.
World of Rotary
Every week we bring to you a little snapshot of what's going on in the world of Rotary. This week's World of Rotary segment comes from our president-elect, Mitty Chang.
From President-elect Mitty:
"Yvonne Kwan, Stephen Zhou, and myself all went to this year's Rotary International Convention in Seoul, South Korea. To say it was massive is an understatement. Over 43,000 Rotarians and guests attended this year's Rotary International Convention. To give you a comparison, last year's convention in Sao Paulo, Brazil was roughly 13,000 attendees, and the year before in Sydney, Australia was roughly 17,000 attendees.
This was my 9th Rotary International Convention, and I have to say that it's been one of the most organized and well-attended conventions I have been to. My highlights for these Rotary Conventions are always meeting up with old friends and meeting new friends. I had the honor of speaking at the Rotaract Preconvention as a keynote speaker, and at the Rotary International Convention itself during two workshops I was a presenter for.
One of the unique memories I'll always remember from this year's convention in Seoul will be the Closing Ceremony with Korean popstar PSY, and the rest of the Closing Ceremony artists. I'm also happy to report that I mentioned our club often, and that quite a few Rotarians recognized our club or had already been to one of our meetings! That's always exciting to hear! Below are some photos during the Rotaract Preconvention as well as the Rotary Convention itself.
I hope to see many of our club members make it out next year for the Rotary International Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, USA!"
Birthdays
We are still a few weeks away from celebrating the birthday of Heather Shaw and François Tessier. Between now and then, create a little celebration that benefits others by scrolling back up the page a bit and sharing some Happy Dollars news with us!
The Tidbit
Our Tidbit section is designed to help you learn some technology or other trick to help you out in some way. This week, we honor the inner kindergartner in all of us with this search trick.
The Tidbit is our little section for tech and life tips and tricks ("hacks" for getting things done more quickly and/or easily), and we often have tidbits that are not particularly complex.This week, though, we share a simple hack for Windows 10 users wanting to do complex stuff. It's the trick for enabling "God Mode," and it's explained by the guy who does HandyAndy Tech Tips on YouTube:
That string of characters he mentions? Here it is: {ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}Makes for a seriously geeky moment, that set of letters and numbers. A little like the password that's so strong you can barely reproduce it yourself, no? Ah, the joy of cut-and-paste.
A Little Humor
Whatever we can find that might make you smile, we share. Sometimes, it's clever enough to work!
From guy-sports.com:
A customer at Stingray Fishmongers marvelled at the owner's quick wit and intelligence.
"Tell me, Simon, what makes you so smart?"
"I wouldn't share my secret with just anyone," Simon replies, lowering his voice so the other shoppers won't hear. "But since you're a good and faithful customer, I'll let you in on it. Fish heads. You eat enough of them, you'll be positively brilliant."
"You sell them here?" the customer asks.
"Only $4 apiece," says Simon.
The customer buys three. A week later, he's back in the store complaining that the fish heads were disgusting and he isn't any smarter.
"You didn't eat enough," says Simon. The customer goes home with 20 more fish heads. Two weeks later, he's back and this time he's really angry.
"Hey, Simon," he complains, "you're selling me fish heads for $4 a piece when I can buy the whole fish for $2. You're ripping me off!"
"You see?" says Simon, "you're smarter already!"
Find the right product, and you'll find someone with a need to buy it. Perhaps.
Selected Comments from Last Week
Each week we ask our members and guests to leave comments at the bottom of this page, telling what they thought of the program and the meeting. We hope you, will, as well, as it’s one way of getting to know you and each other better.
Leaving a comment is cool. Leaving without having shared a thought is notably less so. As we're deeply interested in keeping the cool level of our members and guests as high as possible, we felt it was important to point that out. :)We love hearing what you think of the meeting and program, and last week's program from Jan Eric Nordmo on the state of sports was one that generated several ideas we'll share with you now.
From member Richard Knaggs (Cape Town, South Africa):"It is amazing how children relate so well to puppets and animations. Great work happening in Kenya! Such a relevant and current topic Jan Eric. As a school in South Africa we have the same issues with Rugby and cricket. I will share this with our Master of sport. Thank you for presenting."
From member Tzviatko Chiderov (Illinois, USA):"Jan Eric, thank you for an interesting program. I liked your holistic approach to sport and how you did balance your talk with the good and bad. It was great to hear about soccer balls being included in Rotary gift packages. About the undestructable balls, I know the Rotary Club of Nairobi Gigiri has partnered with the One World Play Project to provide some of those balls to communities in need. Might be worth looking into it. Let me know if you'd like me to make an introduction. Keith, amazing work! Congratulations!"
From member Nate Gildart (Tokyo, Japan):"Jan Eric, thanks for the presentation. I've played soccer since I was a kid as well, in university, and have been coaching since I was in high school. This program really did resonate. I teach and coach at a girls' school, so addressing the inequities that exist in sport (and education) are a part of our mission and mindset. I agree 100% in what sport does for kids and confidence. I always feel like I've achieved something as a coach when I see that quiet, shy, hardworking teenager get recognition from their peers and/or a sense of pride in themselves from their efforts. I could write on and on about elements of this program. :D Nice work Keith! I admire your photography prowess!"
From member Heather Shaw (California, USA):"Congrats Keith! You have such a gift. Thanks for sharing it with us. Sports served as such a confidence builder and outlet for me and it's great to hear that it's being used in such innovative ways. Thanks, Jan Eric! ?"
From guest Everett Alexander (Virginia, USA):"I love making up at your club as it is more like visiting an actual club than just spending time searching for articles to read or videos to watch. I just sent an email to my son, a 3rd generation Rotarian, and told him about your meeting(s). I’m sure I'll be back soon as I strive to continue my perfect attendance of 42 years."
From member Gene Tognetti (California, USA):"Well-deserved congrats to Keith - great photo! I enjoyed Jan Eric's presentation, too. I saw many of the highs - and lows - described during the many years my son Chris played Little League baseball. Overall, there was much value for him in participating. It is a shame that the positives of sports - personal growth, the many physical benefits, etc. - get lost amidst poor coaching, favoritism, bullying, and other negatives Jan Eric pointed out, which Chris faced. Someday, perhaps we'll see many more positives and far fewer negatives. Sports are a way to bring us together!"
From guest Jonathan Stelling (Georgia, USA):"Interesting topic and the idea of using sports as an ancillary approach to building stronger ties in service projects should be given more attention. Soccer was given as a possible example, but baseball might be a great way to connect in other cases. Love the meeting format! Thank you for having me again as a guest."From member François Tessier (Quebec, Canada):"Back from Sri Lanka, I've seen many young people in extremely poor conditions and coming from all ethnic origin playing together their national sport: cricket. Sports unites people. Sports is peace building. Sports is a human right."
From guest Raquel Juncal (Costa Rica):"Through sports we can develop social entrepreneurship programs. The main objective is promoting peace and human values in order to form citizens who will contribute to build up a better society. Jan, thank you for sharing your perspectives."
From member Linda Diekman (Illinois, USA):"Many thanks, Jan Eric, for sharing your perspectives on sport. I've benefitted from Title IX opportunities and still participate in several sports. As a side note, my husband and I hold season football tickets at the University of Michigan (my husband is a letterwinner) and we were very happy to have Coach Harbaugh return "home"!"
From guest Jan Eric Nordmo (California, USA):"Thank you all for your interest and comments. Also, thank you for your involvement in Rotary, François, Sports does have the ability to unity people, it should be used more frequently, in my opinion. When dignity and respect can be shared on the fields and courts of competition, it perhaps may spark or encourage humankind to do the same on a political and social levels. Kids' games may one day show us the path to peace. And for us old timers, we can also have those glory days in our heads...even the ladies can now, Linda. ;) Should you find any projects that might benefit from a few old soccer balls or jerseys, please let me know ...or if there are other ways that I may help! See you on the field of life! All the best! Jan Eric PS. Big thanks to Rushton for the invite to be a part of your digital world."
The Program
Our club looks far and wide to find interesting people making a difference for others, and this week, we have Darren Collins, a Rotarian from Texas, who has worked to address the problem of communicating about difficult health topics. His approach? Puppets.
Puppets are an established educational tool. Additionally, puppets are especially keen at communicating very difficult topics, topics that might otherwise remain unspoken for being taboo or simply embarrassing. HIV/AIDS, not unlike other health issues, can be described not just as a medical problem, but as a social problem. Puppets can be effectively used to break down social barriers and address the medical facts and social issues without turning people off.Because of this unique ability, Project HAND UP has aimed to present live, in person, educational puppet shows at schools, churches, and community gathering spaces all around East Africa. Magic tricks are also used to capture attention and provide “object lessons” to some of the medical and social concepts. In this presentation, Darren Collins will show our eclub how puppets and magic effects are used, the history of the project, and how Rotarians are using these unusual tools to tackle the difficult task of HIV Prevention and AIDS Education in Kenya.Darren Collins is a member of Rotary Club of DeSoto, located a few minutes south of Dallas, Texas. Classification: "Edutainer." Since 1997 Darren has been touring around the world performing educational juggling and magic shows. A big chunk of his career has also been as a puppetry trainer and puppeteer. He has taught over 20,000 people the art of puppetry for the purpose of education.During his early career he travelled back and forth to Cambodia as a volunteer to create puppet shows to teach about water-borne illnesses and germ education. After seeing the tremendous impact educational school shows could have on health in developing world communities, he decided to make a change. In 2012 he dropped his agent, put all his belongings in storage, rented out his house and embarked on a journey to start an organization that would create and implement puppetry and magic shows for the purpose of HIV/AIDS education. His Rotary club got involved, and now Darren resides in Kenya, having launched a successful educational campaign with a crew of Kenyan puppeteers and Rotary International.Members and guests, please welcome Darren Collins!
You can learn more about Project HAND UP at its site. Visiting Rotarians, here's how to get Darren to come and talk to your club.
Upcoming Programs
Week of June 13th: Chris Cochrane - How to Raise Money Using VideoWeek of June 20th: Doug McNeil - Lighting for Literacy
You’re Almost Done! One last thing: The Attendance Survey..
Thanks for reading and watching this week’s meeting. You have two last things to do before you’re done. First, we have a very short attendance survey below for you to fill out to record your attendance.
Visiting Rotarians, this is how you can get an email receipt to pass along to your club’s secretary as proof that you’ve attended our meeting if you need it for makeups.Non-Rotarian Guests, we would love to see who is dropping by our meetings! This part is optional for you though.More importantly, for all members and guests — we strongly recommend and ask that you leave a comment below in our comments area below. Tell us how you enjoyed the program. Ask this week’s speaker any questions you might have. Or just stop by and say hello and tell us where you’re from!
