Lonnie Hackett, last year’s recipient of a District 7930 Global Grant, has been awarded a $35,000 Rotary Global Grant Scholarship and is studying this year for a Master’s Degree in Public Health Administration at Oxford University in the UK.Lonnie is a 2014 Bowdoin College graduate and the Founder and President of Healthy Kids/Brighter Future (HK/BF), a non-profit organization working in Zambia to deliver health care to children by educating elementary school administrators and teachers to recognize illness in their students and provide them access to government clinics in their communities.
Working with HK/BF and the Rotary Club of Nkwazi in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, Ipswich Rotary submitted a Rotary Global Grant for $125,000 that was approved by Rotary International in the summer of 2016. The HK/BF Global Grant was funded by 22 clubs from District 7930, 11 clubs from District 7780, and one club each from Bangor, Maine and Mercer Island, Washington. Since May, the Global Grant has funded health screenings for over 15,000 primary school students in three communities, completing basic physical examinations and dispensing deworming medication and Vitamin A to children in nine schools. For more information on Healthy Kids/Brighter Future, see their website at www.healthykidsbrighterfuture.org.The Nkwazi Club and HK/BF received recognition for their work on health care delivery. Read the article at https://www.daily-mail.co.zm/rotary-club-of-nkwazi-aids-community-schools-in-ngombe/.
A District 7930 team of Ipswich Rotarians Jim Stone, Bob Gravino, and Bob’s wife Kathy visited Zambia in May to visit the project and meet with our Nkwazi Rotarian partners.
