Our local community projects address visible and preventable issues in communities in and around the greater Melbourne area, including ending homelessness, keeping famlies safe and making a contribution to health and the needs of the elderly in our community.
Nationally, we strive for large, impactful projects addressing areas of greatest need in the Australian community, particularly Aboriginal people, refugees, and those experiencing socio economic disadvantage.
Rotary Melbourne has signed a MOU with Launch Housing to support Launch Housing's mission to house the homeless.
Summary of the Ending Homelessness forum, by Marion Macleod, which was facilitated at the Multi District Conference 2019. This forum was outstanding and generated much discussion and interest.
The Rotary Club of Melbourne has long held a special focus on community health and supporting ageing. We identify issues in the community where we can can make a contribution and improve people's lives. Our members include specialists and experts in the health field, helping to identify, implement and manage live-changing projects.
When club member Barry White brought along his brother Neville to a Rotary Melbourne meeting in 2003, who knew what would inspire a multi-year, multi-million dollar commitment to build a community centre and school, train teachers, and give support to the remote homeland community of Donydji in North East Arnhem Land, Northern Territory.
The vision for Gathering of Kindness, a Rotary 100 Years Project, is to help the Hush Foundation to extend its reach, in Victoria and Nationally, through Rotary’s community connection.
Rotary Melbourne has a long history of supporting Australian Rotary Health, one of the largest independent funders of mental health research within Australia. ARH also assists a broad range of general health areas, provides scholarships for rural medical and nursing students, as well as Indigenous health students.
Rotary Melbourne has worked with Afri Aus Care for a number of years to help African Australians in Melbourne's South East. See this latest ABC Melbourne report.
Beginning as a response to the Victorian Commission on Family Violence in 2017, the Healing the Hurt project focused on the needs of children who live in traumatic situations. While there are numerous agencies and therapists who support families, they lack the specialised training to treat trauma.
Rotary Melbourne in partnership with the Rotary Clubs of Albert Park, Docklands and Brighton North developed a product called “Footy Nuts” - a 30 gram pack of dry roasted Australian almonds - introduced to indigenous children in an effort to move their diet away from snack foods with low nutritional value.
