International Causes

GIFT A SMILE FOR LIFE

Contributing to Operation Cleft Australia, an international humanitarian project of the Rotary Club of Box Hill Central, Victoria. Operation Cleft Australia’s mission is to provide more than 1,500 free, cleft repair surgeries each year to underprivileged children in Bangladesh – enabling them to live normal and meaningful lives. The Rotary Club of Moorabbin has been involved in Operation Cleft for more than 14 years. We have raised over $35,000 providing life changing and dignity restoring operations for babies, children and teenagers with born with debilitating cleft lips, and or palates. Over the 14 years and 140 operations our club has brought hope, good health and beautiful smiles to the suffering, poor and disadvantaged children of Bangladesh.

 

 

Interplast Changing lives and transforming futures. 

 

Interplast provides surgery to patients & training to staff in the Pacific & Asia. You can change lives through surgery today, and it benefits their communities in years to come

Polio Plus

Rotary’s End Polio Now campaign was founded by Australian Rotary International President Sir Clem Renouf AM, the 1978-79 Rotary International President. 

In 1979, Rotary began its fight by vaccinating 6 million children in the Philippines. In 1985, Rotary launched PolioPlus, the largest private-sector public health initiative, and in 1988, partnered with the World Health Organization & The Gates Foundation to start the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.                           

Since then, remarkable progress has been made. Polio was once endemic in 125 countries, but is now only present in Pakistan and Afghanistan.      Polio-related cases dropped from 350,000 in 1988 to just 92 in 2024, which sadly is an increase from the 12 cases reported in 2023.       

Over 2.5 billion children have been immunized, and 20 million people have avoided paralysis.       

The Polio Plus effort has reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent worldwide, and we won’t stop until we end the disease for good. The fight is not yet over!

Ricky, from Timor-Leste, was hosted by Jason and Intha Chetty under the ROMAC program, supported by the Rotary Club of Moorabbin. He required major leg surgery to prevent the risk of losing his limb.

During his time in Melbourne, Ricky—who has a strong interest in electronics engineering—was taken by Geoff Gray to visit the Lewis Australia factory in Moorabbin, where he had the opportunity to see some of the advanced robotic equipment designed for the mining industry.

In this photo, Ricky is pictured with Andrew Boast and the robots at the Lewis factory.

Andrew himself has a strong connection to Rotary. He was sponsored by the Rotary Club of Moorabbin and the Rotary District’s Group Study Exchange (GSE) program, which facilitated an exchange of four young professionals (aged 25–35) between our district and a Rotary district overseas. These professionals were hosted by local Rotarians for 4–6 weeks, gaining exposure to industries related to their careers, along with participating in cultural visits.    

In Andrew’s year, the exchange was with a Rotary district in Texas, including Houston, with a focus on education. During the exchange, Andrew gained valuable insights into 3D printing and deepened his understanding of Rotary’s global impact.

ShelterBox

ShelterBox is a Rotary Internationally endorsed program that operates with the support of Rotary Clubs and individual Rotarians who contribute financially and as members of the teams who distribute the shelterboxes. Each box contains the necessities to provide shelter in the short term and to support the rebuilding of lives that have been disrupted by natural disasters and conflict.

 

Each Shelter Box contains:

  • A dry weatherproof Shelter/tent for up to 10 people

  • A warm bed

  • Water purification

  • Cooking aids and Utensils

  • A practical toolkit

  • Children's pack

SEWING THE SEEDS

Upskilling & creating safe & sustainable employment for women from disadvantaged & minority groups in India. Supporting Children’s Education via a Micro-loan Initiative.

Teacher in a Box

Preloaded educational & training material, using repurposed laptops. It is a huge interactive library of community and academic resources that can be accessed without internet. Yes, NO internet!!. Implemented in 20 schools in the remote rural islands of Indonesia. This is a joint project with the Rotary Club of Paddington.