Grants from Lake Forest Park Rotary support international projects

Suraiya Ataur Medical Center
Photo courtesy Rotary International

The LFP Rotary Club Foundation board recently approved two grants to help provide basic human services to villages in two very different parts of the world.

Suraiya Ataur Medical Center

Suraiya Ataur, in Chondipur, northern Bangladesh, started in 2014 as a small clinic in a school when classes were not in session. The original schedule of 4 hours a week quickly became inadequate to serve the numbers of people who responded to the new opportunity for medical care. More afterschool hours have been added, but that, too, has proved inadequate.

The Center has now begun construction of a new building on a site next to the school. This grant of $10,000 will help complete the new building, equip it with a generator for reliable power and a refrigerator to store vaccines. The Center treats all medical needs, but with a female doctor, it is uniquely able to respond to women’s needs, especially pre- and post-pregnancy treatment. The Center’s next goal? - to open a nursing school within the next 5 years.

Ethiopian Water Projects

This program was originally conceived in 2004 by members of the University Rotary Club, to provide safe water in rural Ethiopia, long plagued by drought and contaminated water sources - often far from the people who use them. Planning and fundraising involved 48 local clubs in Washington and Oregon, as well as Rotary clubs in Ethiopia. With matching funding from Rotary International, 19 initial projects were constructed between 2006-2008. Those included deep borehole wells and spring water capture systems.

A second phase of water projects was completed in 2011, bringing total projects to 42, directly benefiting over 120,000 people. The LFP Club’s grant is $5,000 for repairs to 6 of those original wells. In this effort the LFP Club is partnering with the University Rotary Club and other clubs around the area.

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