Recap DISC International Café
Oct. 11, 2025
By: Bill Dunn, Secretary, DISC; Yarmouth RC
On Saturday, October 11, 2025, about 30 Rotarians and friends attended the latest International Café on Zoom. The Café started with DG Emma introducing this year’s International Outreach team, which will be travelling to the Bangalore region of India in February 2026. Next Interactor Nellie Young introduced her project Empowering Peru Through Culinary Education. Elias Thomas presented a video on Dam projects in rural India. Emma mentioned the wealth of Project Fairs in Africa and Central/South American. Finally, Dave Underhill indicated that the Portsmouth Club is working on a Peace and Conflict Resolution project in the Pune Region of India. More details on these presentations follow and can be found at this link: https://vimeo.com/1130761247?fl=tl&fe=ec
The Café started with DG Emma introducing this year’s International Outreach team, which will be travelling to the Bangalore region of India in February 2026. Team Leader Rick Whelchel (Bridgton-Lake Region RC) described his background and experience. He then introduced the other 4 members of the Team: Sandra Basgal (Bath RC), Jeffrey Slaton (Saco Bay RC), Marion Cheney (Dover RC) and Elizabeth Fischer (Dover RC), who each described their background and experience. The Team indicated it would be holding its first meeting the following week.
Next Interactor Nellie Young was introduced to described her project, “Empowering Peru Through Culinary Education.” Nellie, who is a very involved Senior at Marshwood High School, first described a previous project in Peru for which she raised $18k to build a new classroom and upgrade an old one. She is now raising $10k to build, outfit and upgrade the facilities at a school to create a safe kitchen space and teach practical vocational skills (cooking and business) to equip youth with the tools to learn, grow, and succeed. She is about ⅔ of the way to her fundraising goal and is looking for other Clubs to help. She can be reached at nellie.young@rsu35.org.
Elias Thomas, one of a group of “Dam Rotarians,” described and presented a video on projects to build catchment dams in rural India where water is scarce. They work with a local Foundation in Rajasthan that was founded by a former RI President but also provide dams in neighboring states. They have been doing this since 2010 and are currently raising $107k for their 16th dam, which like previous dams will be built by hand in 2-3 months. Besides providing a reservoir for irrigation of crops, such dams also raise the water table, which recharges wells in the area. This allows farmers to grow 3 crops a year instead of just 1, and they can sell the 3rd crop to improve their financial situation. A trip to participate in building this next dam is scheduled for February 2026. Rotarians interested in participating should contact Elias at elias@exitkeyrealestate.com or (207) 432-2222.
Emma described a new DG initiative to get more District Rotarians interested in attending Project Fairs. She has previously distributed with her weekly email an Application Form to apply for a $1,000 scholarship to attend a Project Fair, and noted some upcoming Fairs in Africa and Central/South America. For more on these fairs, see: https://my.rotary.org/en/events-and-connections/events/project-fairs. Emma will distribute the Scholarship Application Form again with one of her future weekly emails.
Dave Underhill indicated that the Portsmouth Club is working on a Peace and Conflict Resolution project in the Pune region of India. Ann Bliss is leading the project; they would love to have more District Club support the project. Dave can be reached at: dave.underhill.nh@gmail.com or (603) 706-3143 and Ann can be reached at: anncbliss@gmail.com.
Emma noted that, according to Carolyn Johnson, the District still has money available to support Global Grants, so get out there and look for projects! The next International Café is scheduled for Saturday, December 13th at 9:30 am on Zoom.
The next International Café is scheduled for Saturday, December 13, 2025, 9:30-11:00AM via Zoom. Watch for the link from DG Emma a few days before the Café. Mark your calendars.