|
 The
Rotary Club of Ndola is the first Rotary Club (and indeed the first
service club) in Zambia, the Northern Rhodesia.
The bell
(gong) donated by our charter club The Rotary Club of Bulawayo in 1955
Also see our
Rotary Bell history
The club has a very
rich history which is difficult to recount in totality due to lack of
formal club archives, but this presentation is a fidel historical
account of the club. This chapter, read together with the subsequent
ones, will put you in the true picture of what service has been in the
last fifty years.
The Club was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Bulawayo
who presented a magnificent bell (gong) for the use at club meetings,
and is the same gong we are using to date. The first regular meetings of
the club started in April 1953, was chartered on 22nd June 1953 and the
charter dinner was held on 24th July the same year where District
Governor Arthur Thornton (District 25) presented the Club’s Charter.
George Minter was the Charter President of this new club
with 25 members.
Early in 1954, the Rotary Clubs of Livingstone, Lusaka
and Kitwe became into being. The Rotary Club of Livingstone was
sponsored by the Rotary Club of Bulawayo, The Rotary Club of Kitwe
was sponsored by the Rotary
Club of Ndola while the Bulawayo and Ndola Clubs co-sponsored the Rotary
Club of Lusaka.
Three years later, the Rotary Club of Ndola sponsored
the Rotary Clubs of
Luanshya and Mufulira.
This shows that the Rotary Club of Ndola is a pioneer of the development
of Rotar y in Zambia.
In 1955, The Rotary Club of Ndola helped in the
formation of the Rotary Club of Elizabethville in the Congo, now
Lubumbashi, the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In 1954-1955 Arthur Christie inaugurated the little
theatre project which was taken over by the representative community
committee chaired by Rotarian Abe Lowenthal and the final result was and
is s till The
Lowenthal Theatre.
In 1955, during the celebrations of the Golden
Anniversary of Rotary International, the club undertook to develop a
wastel and along Nkandabwe Road into a park known as The Village Green.
An open air theatre was built. Towards the end of the Anniversary year,
The Rotary International President A. Z. Baker visited the Rotary Club
of Ndola, planted a tree at The Village Green and trees were also
planted by the Mayor of Ndola, Councilor J. W. Trant and Club President,
Dennis Winchester Gould. Unfortunately the trees were eaten by white
ants.
Under PP Tom Catchpole, the Rotary Club of Ndola
developed a strong Youth Committee, sponsored a Youth Ball, bought a
building, No 5 Dr. Damie Street and turned it into the Youth Centre.
Later when the Rotary Club of Ndola introduced a branch of Red Cross on the Copperbelt, the building was
donated to the Red Cross and to date is still their headquarters in
Ndola. |
The Rotary Club of Ndola sponsored the very first Interact Club in
Zambia, The Interact Club of Chiwala Secondary School in
1967, and later Interact Clubs were sponsored at Masala, Lubuto, Fatima
and Chifubu Secondary Schools. The Rotaract Clubs of Ndola and Kansenshi
were also sponsored (see page 39 - Youth and Vocation).
The Mushili Youth Training Centre is supported by our
club in partnership with the Ndola City Council and the Baptist Church.
It offers trade skills training as carpentry and
joinery, tailoring, metal fabrication, computer skills etc. In 1993, our
clu b in conjunction with the British Council donated 200kg of equipment
to the centre. It is in the same spirit that in 1999 fifteen sewing
machines were donated to the Kwacha Adult Centre.
In 1973, The Rotary Club of Ndola in partnership with
other service clubs equipped the Ndola Central Hospital
Blood Bank with the necessary refrigerator and equipment
to meet the services
required. The next problem the hospital faced was transport to outreach
blood donors. So, as a Silver Jubilee Project, the idea of a Mobile Blood Bank,
a specialist vehicle, with facilities for blood storage after collection
and accommodation of blood donors was donated to the hospital in 1 978.
Unfortunately, the remains of this important “bank” are lying somewhere
in a Chipulukusu yard after years of service.
Aid for AIDS:
Apart from public speaking contests by school children on various topics
including AIDS and seminars, our club donated US$ 400 to the Society for
HIV Negative (SHINE) plus 45 kgs of assorted medicines and food
supplements sourced by PP NG Patel from Ohio in the USA. We also
officiated at the official commemoration of the World’s AIDS Day at the
Fiwale Hills Hospital this Rotary Year.
Most important still, fellowship has been our greatest
achievement in the last 50 years . We have had successes and failures
but the current fellowship of nine nationalities from four continents
vindicates us.
In 1955/56 The Rotary Club of Ndola decided to establish
a private school in Northern Rhodesia, but it was realized that it would
be a big burden for future Presidents. Instead a bursary fund was created to help young boys and
girls attain higher education. An annual fete held at Village Green in
1956 raised 1 659 Sterling Pounds and a year later the fund had
accumulated 1,410 Sterling Pounds n interest. The first bursary was
awarded to Mr. H.C. Thornicroft to qualify as a teacher and he; later
became Minister of State for Technical Education.
Today, a similar bursary fund established in 1992, The Cliff Gent
Memorial Fund is in
existence named after PP Cliff Gent and is meant to help with school
fees for vulnerable children in secondary schools. Next year the fund is
intended to be reinforced to help more and more children.
In the same year, PP Dave
Bermont and Richmond Smith decided to go a step beyond the Youth Ball in
pursuit of keeping them off the streets . They thought that the material
provided by the youth and Rotary could provide technical training for
young people, thus
The Northern Technical College (Nortec) was founded in Ndola. |
