LIMA — While many service clubs are often known for their work in their local communities, a member of a Lima area service club discussed the global impact these clubs can have.
Lima Rotary Club member Bob Ruehl spoke at his club’s Monday meeting at Veterans Memorial Civic and Convention Center regarding his service trip to El Salvador and Honduras. On what was his 34th international service trip, Ruehl visited a Rotary Club project fair at a resort in El Salvador while also traveling to Honduras to visit a girls’ orphanage as well as a sanitation project in Merendón Mountains in the northwestern part of the Central American nation.
“We’re trying to help the Lenca Indians in the highlands of Honduras,” Ruehl said. “At this point, the project is approved. We have $200,000, and it’s a matter of getting the coordination established on [sanitation] training and making sure that everyone is on the same wavelength to get it done.”
The $200,000 grant is the largest of its kind conducted by the Lima Rotary Club, with support also coming in from other Rotary Clubs in Ohio, Washington, California, Canada and Mexico. The project consists of constructing up to 130 demonstration latrines in selected villages in the mountains, addressing a potential health risk for the indigenous population. Additionally, the project would seek to educate the population on proper hygiene practices, greatly reducing the potential for the spread of disease.
“Rotarians are a service group, and we do things to help other people, whether the project is done locally or internationally,” Ruehl said. “You don’t look at this with ‘What’s in it for me?’ because that’s not what Rotary is about. We’re about helping other people.”
The hope is that the project will expand to as many as 2,000 latrines constructed in the region.
“We’ll be training schoolchildren in kindergarten to wash their hands,” Ruehl said. “The No. 1 aspect of preventing disease is to wash your hands. For you and me, it’s pretty common, but it’s not for them. Secondly, we want to train the village boards in each community how to work with the latrines we’re going to put in. Changing culture is what this is about.”
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