Speakers

Australia is the world's only developed country with trachoma, a disease of the eye caused by infection with the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis. 

EndTrachoma was an initiative started by Rotary Melbourne and progressed to be a project led by Nourish our Communities Ltd., which enabled End Trachoma to be a Rotary District of Australia project.

Sandi Fulcher is a past president of the Rotary Club of Chadstone East Malvern, holding many roles within that club and at the District level. She is currently the District 9800 Public Image Chair, Rotary Zone 8 Assistant Public Image Chair and is Project Administrator Coordinator for End Trachoma.

Fiona Redding is a mindset coach, author, podcaster and motivational speaker, and is the Founder of The Happiness Hunter. In 2012 Fiona woke up with a burning question “How has this become my life?”. Fiona was 37, at home with two tiny kids, drinking every day, and was unfit and unhealthy. At this time, she realised that if she wanted her life to change, she had to own it – it was her that had to change. She decided to focus on one thing: Happiness. The seed of The Happiness Hunter was planted. She started her own coaching, consulting, and speaking business. She started meditating, stopped drinking, and started walking every day. Over the last ten years, Fiona’s life has completely transformed in every single area and through The Happiness Hunter, she teaches and shares everything she has learnt over that time. 

My parents were born in Ukraine, I am the oldest of 4 children and was born in Poland. My next brother was born in Czechoslovakia and the younger twin brothers were born in Germany - in an American refugee camp where we spent four years waiting to be processed for immigration to a new life in Australia.

 

We are Ukrainians who fled Russian invasion twice and are grateful to this wonderful country of Australia which provided us with safety, education and the promise of a future.

PDG Murray Verso is the End Polio Now Coordinator for Rotary Zone 8 (Australia, New Zealand & South Pacific countries). He joined the Rotary Club of Williamstown, Victoria in 1981 and has served the club in many capacities, including two terms as club president (1986-1987 and 2008- 2009). He is a Past Governor of District 9800 (2014-2015).
In Rotary Foundation Month, Murray will talk to us of the work of The Rotarty Foundation, and the continuing global effort to rid the world of the crippling disease of polio.

Join us to hear Jemimah Ashleigh speak about her involvement with the Puri Bhartu Orphanage in Northern Bali.  It is home to 40 children, aged 4 – 17.  Jemimah has been assisting in the running of the orphanage since 2019, and she will tell us about the key challenges they face.  

Victoria’s first Rotary Peace Scholar Dr. Tania Miletic has kept up her peacebuilding theme ever since District 9800 sent her to two years’ MA studies at Tokyo’s Rotary Peace Centre at ICU in 2002, with a scholarship funded by a grant from The Rotary Foundation.  She is now the Assistant Director of the University of Melbourne's Initiative for Peacebuilding within the Arts Faculty, working to promote multidisciplinary research, teaching and policy development that supports effective engagement in conflict prevention and peacebuilding in the Indo Pacific region. She is an experienced peace and conflict studies academic and practitioner with a commitment to working collaboratively to translate research into policy and practice in conflict prevention and peacebuilding in the Indo Pacific region.

Tania is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences. In Rotary Foundation Month, Tania will be joined by District 9800 Foundation Committee member Gabe Hau, who leads the D9800 Peacebuilder Program.

 

Dr Elaine Pratley is a Rotary Peace Fellow and was the Co-Chair of the 24-hour Global Peace Conference. She represented the New Zealand government as a Crown Prosecutor and a multilateral negotiator with the World Bank and IMF, managed the international law team for China’s biggest law firm, and was involved in start-ups and non-profits in the Asia-Pacific. Her Masters focussed on youth peacebuilding while her PhD examined how food can be mobilised for peace. She is based in Melbourne and is developing a Peace Lab where businesses and social ventures can partner for peace.