Roadside Environmental Cleanup
Serving your community while enjoying the companionship of your fellow volunteers is what it is all about.

Each year in the Spring and Fall, the Rotary Club of Nepean-Kanata organizes a cleanup of Hunt Club Road West. As a busy highway much trash can accumulate over the winter becoming an eyesore and potentially finding it's way into local waterways.

Coming equipped with trash pickup sticks and high visibility vests, fueled by coffee and doughnuts from a local Timmy's our intrepid environmental weekend warriors set about their task. A typical haul is several dozen garbage bags full of trash each year most of which is consumer plastic but often includes larger items like hubcaps, truck mud flaps, assorted construction material off passing vehicles and other weird and wonderful things.

This event also is also popular with young people known to members. It provides a direct and visible way for them to make a difference in their communities and add to their high school required community service hours.

A beautiful day doing good outdoors.

Special Education Programs
Research has shown that physical activity programs can greatly enhance the quality of life for special needs kids. 

Many children with developmental disabilities also face physical and motor challenges. For children that require a wheelchair this is compounded with feelings of exclusion from more able kids.

The funds raised from a club Whiskey Tasting fundraiser were contributed towards the purchase of  wheelchair accessible swing at the Crystal Bay Centre for Special Education in Nepean.

Empowering Mothers as Teachers 
One in three children in the world do not receive the education they need to be literate. 

The Amarok Society, is a Canadian registered charity that has taken a unique approach to address this need. Focused on Bangladesh, the Amarok Society teaches mothers to be teachers of the children within their own communities. 

Mother's attend Amarok run schools in the day and teach five local children what they have learned after class. More than just a mechanism to combat illiteracy, the Amarok Society's approach, helps address social factors which perpetuate poverty through a lack of education. Girls are often forced into early marriage by the tradition of paying dowries. Social norms provide an incentive for parents to marry-off their daughters early. For boys the pressure of poverty forces them into childhood jobs taking them out of school.

By teaching mothers within the community how to teach they also are equipped with the agency to advocate for positive social change valuing education for their children and the children within their local communities. 

The Rotary Club of Nepean Kanata is a supporter of the Amarok Society.

Keeping Girls in School
Partnering with Cornwall Sunrise, the club of Nepean-Kanata provides "Go with the Flow" reusable feminine hygiene pads to girls in Ghana and Uganda.

In much of sub-Saharan Africa, less than half of girls have access to the basics, leading many girls to drop out of school. In Uganda, only 22% of girls are enrolled in secondary schools. 

Difficulty managing their periods hinders access to education. Research shows addressing this need can lead to increased attendance. In a World Bank study, "low educational attainment for girls leads to negative impacts not just for the girls, but also for their children, families, communities, and societies." 

Negative Impacts: 

• Increased malnutrition for women and children 

• Greater poverty and larger family sizes

• Increased intimate partner violence 

• Reduced participation in societal decision making

We are working to help local groups expand the program to more villages by supporting local sewing groups to make the products in their communities.

If you would like to contribute to this worthy cause please contact us at fundraising@rotarkynk.ca.

Adventure In High Tech 

A major event in the service calendar for the Club of Nepean Kanata is the annual the "Adventure in High Tech". Experts within Ottawa's vibrant hi-tech business community along with excellent universities and colleges have been providing volunteer presenters and workshop hosts for AiHT for nearly 40 years. Session topics range from the technical (artificial intelligence, 3d modeling, autonomous vehicles, game development, etc.) to career coaching and sharing of leadership experiences.

Held in the fall of each year, our club is the host for high school age students across North Eastern Ontario and Upstate New York with a stated interest in pursuing a career in high technology. In the last two years the session has moved to a virtual setting allowing the club to expand the event to 40 students and include sponsorship of half a dozen youth from developing nations in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean.

Consider sponsoring a student from a developing nation today.

Contact: fundraising@rotarkynk.ca

"Our lives were changed by this event...
I hope to participate again in future"

The Caldwell Family Centre has been reducing the impact of poverty in Ottawa for over three and a half decades. The story of the Caldwell Family Centre began early in the 1980's with one determined woman, Sister Thelma Marion together with three other sisters from the Sacred Heart congregation. Initially out of their residence, the sisters provided food, clothing and taught life skills to members of their local community in need. Gradually the range of services offered grew.

In collaboration with the federal government and Catholic School Board, English as a second language courses began being offered to new Canadians from Vietnam and Cambodia in the mid '80s. Gradually progressing from an informal operation the Centre was incorporated on June 7th, 1986 as an Ontario not-for-profit corporation with charitable status, and "officially" opened to the public.

Working with partners, Caldwell strives to meet clients' needs in a wide variety of areas, including food security, social engagement, child and youth programming and vocational support.

Through regular volunteering and donations, The Rotary Club of Nepean-Kanata has been a supporter of Caldwell for many years. 

Distance Learning 

In 2017, hurricane Maria decimated the small island nation of Dominica. The Ottawa Dominican diaspora hit on a plan to provide skills training to islanders to allow them to rebuild using climate resilient best practices. 

Then along came the Covid-19 pandemic. Several Ottawa Rotary clubs and the Rotary Club of Dominica took up the challenge. Grants from Rotary International and Global Affairs Canada, are now funding a Distance Learning pilot to provide practical vocational training. 

Colleges & Institutes Canada, Algonquin College and Dalhousie University agreed to provide learning content. The Dominican government and the Builders and Contractors Association are providing enthusiastic support. 

Three "Smart Rooms" are now operational with expansion plans under consideration. 

Distance Learning enables small nations in the Caribbean to participate fully in a digital world.