RC Batangas Attends Discon 2023

A District Conference (Discon) is for all club members and their spouses, not just for club officers and committee members. The purpose of a District Conference is for fellowship, good fun, inspirational speakers, and discussion of matters which make one's Rotary membership more meaningful. Every person who attends a district conference find that being a Rotarian becomes even more rewarding because of the new experiences, insights, and acquaintances developed at the conference; and those who attend Discon enjoy going back, year after year.

The Rotary Club of Batangas attended the annual District Conference (Discon 2023) held last May 1-2, 2023 at the Grand Ballroom of Okada Manila in Parañaque City. The club was ably represented by GSP Arnel Pulla, along with his First Lady, RS Evelyn; PP Do Hornilla, PP Vic Castillo, PND Ady Ilano, and Rtn Klyr Ilano, along with her Rotakid son, Gio Ilano.

IN PERSPECTIVE : Batangueño Rotarians in Action

Discon 2023

Okada Manila, Parañaque City / April 1-2, 2023

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENTIAL MONTHLY MESSAGE April 2023

In March 2020, I had a panic attack. I couldn't breathe, and I felt a terrible pain in my chest.

It had been a few days since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, and I was in the middle of my year as a Rotary Youth Exchange student in the United States. Think about it: an 18-year-old girl stuck in a different country, with a foreign language, with people she had only met six months before. It was scary.

But I am familiar with uncertainty. I was born and raised in Venezuela, which is going through one of the worst humanitarian and political crises in the Western Hemisphere. But my mom always said, "Challenges are nothing more than needs that require a solution."

I called up my Interact and Youth Exchange friends. Together, we organized an online meeting to share projects and get inspired by what everyone else was doing during the quarantine. In that first meeting, we had 70 people, mainly students, from 17 countries.

From that beginning, we built an online platform for Rotary youths worldwide to share their experiences and inspire others with project ideas during isolation. We looked for mentors and supporters who would help our group connect young people, share cultures, and open new collaborative opportunities for international service projects. We called it Rotary Interactive Quarantine, or RIQ.

After only a year, we engaged with more than 5,000 students from 80 countries. Several of our team members became district Interact representatives and district committee members, and some of us even serve on Rotary International councils.

Eventually, quarantine restrictions were being lifted, and the needs of our participants were changing. At our last official meeting as RIQ, Past RI President Barry Rassin inspired us to create even bigger change, so we transformed RIQ into the Rotary Youth Network, or RYN.

A few of our members, including me, were selected to serve on the inaugural Interact Advisory Council, where we presented our vision for youth in Rotary to the RI Board of Directors.

Our presentation to the Board inspired President Jennifer and her team to create a Youth Advisory Council in Rotary International, which I am honored to serve on as a co-chair.

The Rotary Youth Network officially launched during a breakout session at the 2022 Rotary International Convention in Houston. Five of us, who had participated in Interact, Youth Exchange, and Rotary Youth Leadership Awards, traveled across continents to launch an organization we had kicked off online two years before. The convention was also the first time we had met in person.

When my friends and I finished our talk, we realized more than 500 people were giving us a standing ovation. Tears filled our eyes, and the feeling of excitement and accomplishment took over.

JENNIFER JONES RI President, 2022-2023

APRIL is MATERNAL & CHILD HEALTH Month

Rotary International's new monthly theme for April is Maternal and Child Health. Every day, mothers risk their lives giving birth and millions of children die each year from treatable, preventable causes. Through grants from The Rotary Foundation, Rotarians improve access to essential medical services for mothers and their children. These efforts are aimed at reducing the number of children under age five who die each year because of malnutrition, inadequate health care, and poor sanitation – a figure that is currently estimated at 7 million.

According to another estimate, more than 80 percent of maternal deaths can be prevented with access to reproductive health services and trained health care workers. To help reduce this rate, we provide immunizations and antibiotics to babies, improve access to essential medical services, and support trained health care providers for mothers and their children. Rotarians provide education, immunizations, birthing kits, and mobile health clinics to support these causes. Women are taught how to prevent mother-to-infant HIV transmission, how to breast-feed, and how to protect themselves and their children from disease.

Your Rotary projects ensure sustainability by empowering the local community to take ownership of health care training programs.

Rotary’s area of focus on Maternal and Child Health is also a global priority for public health professionals, the United Nations announced in 2010 the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health – a task force organized to educate women across the world about reproductive health, combat infant mortality, and save more than 16 million lives by 2015. Experts in maternal and child health focus on the complex public health problems affecting women, children, and their families. This interdisciplinary field seeks answers for the complex health considerations relating to women, pregnancy, reproduction, and infant and child wellbeing. Professionals who concentrate in maternal and child health are interested in the intersection between these populations, and how governments and communities can work together to protect and advance the health of women and children across the world. Maternal and child health professionals provide information and access to sexual reproductive health services and methods of family planning, promote the health of pregnant women and their children, and increase vaccination rates.

Maternal and child health is an important public health issue because we have the opportunity to end preventable deaths among all women, children, and adolescents and to greatly improve their health and well-being. Young children need nutritious food, access to health services, clean water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities to grow up healthy, learn and reach their full potential.

Lookingforwardtoasummerfullofexcitement,learning,andadventure?

Joinme, Service Empowered President Mark Angelo “CK” M. Lumanglas ofthe Rotaract Club of Batangas,onthebreathtakingislandof Boracay fortheultimatecombinationofthethree.

I'mthrilledtobeapartof RYLA Pilipinas 2.0,hostedbyRotaryInternationalDistrict3850,andcohostedbyRotary InternationalDistricts3810and 3820.Withthis exciting event,youcan connect with service-minded individuals, gain valuable insights, and further cultivate personal and professionalgrowth.