UNA HOBDAY AND FOOD PLANT SOLUTIONS

Past District Governor Una Hobday describes herself as a proud Rotarian. She is married and has four grown children.  Una was a Registered Nurse and also held a Graduate Diploma in Health Education and a  Graduate Diploma in Professional Management.  She worked in Victoria, WA and Tasmania and retired as the Manager of Adoption Services in Tasmania. 

My Rotary Life

Why did I join Rotary International?

I had been a speaker on the changes to Aged Care to many Rotary Clubs in Perth WA, and I had heard about all the projects clubs were involved in, such as Polio Eradication, the Bali Eye Clinic, pre-school education and wheel chairs for the handicapped.  I decided that If I was asked, I would be privileged to join such a dynamic organisation.
 
A Rotary Club in Perth wanted to charter an all-woman Rotary club.   They approached me and asked if I could help them charter a club of 25 women.  After some work, the Rotary Club of Hollywood began in May 1990.

I was the first woman President in that district.  From there to Charter another Rotary Club in a town I had moved to for a job.

I was the First Woman Assistant Governor, District 9450.

I was the first female District Governor in Australasia - one of 21 women out of 540 Governors internationally, that year 1999- 2000

But why stay in Rotary?

Bali Eye Clinic
A DG came back from a holiday in Bali, being really concerned about the numbers of people that had cataracts in the poorer areas of Bali. He put a proposition to his Rotary Club that they look to providing a mobile van for the purpose of cataract surgery.  The Rotary Foundation assisted with this;

• first a Discovery Grant where a group went to Bali to look at all the political issues and community issues surrounding the idea.
• Then an application for a 4 Heath Grant- Health Hunger and Humanity Grant, which was approved. They bought a Mazda van from a school and the people in the club worked with and engineer in that club to build the inner parts of the van to enable eye surgery to take place.
• They worked with Sir Charles Gardiner Hospital and eye surgeons travelled with the van to educate Balinese surgeons in Cataract surgery. The van parked by a Puscas mas ( heath service) and worked from there.

 Communities were educated, and people came from miles around.
I was a member of that Committee as my first district Committee and helped with the training of nurses in sterilising instruments.
How could you not be moved by seeing an old lady brought by her granddaughter to the clinic and the smile on the old ladies face when she came out of the van and could see her granddaughter for the first time.
Now it is a community owned project. They have a Hospital which now does corneal transplants etc and it was the first hospital that took badly injured Australians in the Bali Bombing. - the power of 1 person to make a difference.

Polio Eradication

• We conducted Polio immunization in Mumbai, protecting 1.5 million children in one day

The Rotary Foundation

• I have an addiction to the Rotary Foundation and all the possibilities there are to assist people in the world.

I am now the International Chair of Food Plant Solutions Rotarian Action Group.  Daily, I think about this . . .3000 children died from malnutrition or malnutrition-related disease while I was asleep last night.  We can change that statistic!  You can hear more about that group when you attend the Rotary Conference this year in Hobart.

During my 29 years in Rotary, I have had an amazing opportunity to do more with my life than I had dreamed possible.  This is a quote from Clem Renoir, a past world president of Rotary International.
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And I would like to finish with a quote from Winston Churchill;
What is the use of living if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?

Una is pictured with International Service Director, Howie Oh.

A big thank you to PDG Una Hobday for your clear and inspirational presentation about Food Plant Solutions and Fresh Food for Families when you visited our club.

PRID John Thorne of Rotary Club of North Hobart had a role in the development of the Fresh Food for Families project of Food Plant Solutions.  Our club is proud of this.