At
the South Pacific Presidents Elect Training Seminar, a friendly
Australian asked me why the Dictionary project was so successful in New
Zealand, yet does not exist in Australia. In New Zealand,
with a population smaller than that of Sydney, since 2008 we have
through Rotary given 120,000 dictionaries, mostly to year 4 children in
schools in lower socio-economic areas, but also to prisons and every
child that goes through the Refugee Resettlement
Centre, and these become the personal property of the recipient. This
is important, as teachers tell us that some of these children live in
homes without one book. An added benefit for Rotary is that when the
children write their name, it is on a page that
shows the donor Rotary club and a simple Four-Way Test so that every dictionary spreads an awareness of Rotary.
While
technology in schools is increasing, you cannot expect a home without a
book to have a computer and interestingly we are finding that schools
equipping children with tablets through various
schemes still ask their Rotary club to continue our dictionary project.
Not all, for some are 100% focussed on technology, but many teachers
still see the value of the written word.
Our
dictionary is not a dull and boring book. It has 10,000 entries and
25,000 definitions and most importantly over 1000 illustrations and
colour on every page. The retail price is over $NZ30
and you can calculate the value of Rotary’s gift to our communities.
The
project is made possible by the Bill and Lorna Boyd Charitable Trust,
funded by Rotarians after Bill’s year as President of Rotary
International. The Trust gives us the financial ability
to import dictionaries in shipments of 20,000 copies and to pay the
publisher as soon as the shipment arrives directly from the printer in
Dubai. Rotary clubs then buy the dictionaries from the Trust at $NZ9.50
each which rebuilds the Trust’s funds. You can
appreciate that supplying a class of 25 children is within the
financial resources of even small clubs and in some areas clubs have the
support of local Trusts.
Last year clubs ordered 17% more copies than the year before, so we are far from having saturated the market!
The
need if Australians want their own dictionary project is to find a
funding source that can provide the seed funds for each shipment. Once
this is available it is not difficult to gain the
support of Rotarians to run the project and it becomes a magic Rotary
moment to be at a school and to have a child put their name in what
becomes their own book.
