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We Share Foundation
Quota’s South Pacific Area Scholarships Support Expertise in Audiology
Fund-raising Idea Spreads from Suriname to Rotterdam
Sign Classes Attract Young Learners
Liverpool Quota Club Listens to Community Needs
Quota’s South Pacific Area Scholarships Support Expertise in Audiology
Quota International's South Pacific Area, including clubs in Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, supports the field of hearing and speech through large cash awards for outstanding scholars.
Two recent recipients "were thrilled," says SPA Scholarship Committee Chair Delwynn Jacklin, to hear about Quota's support for their projects.
Katrina
Agung (right) of Sefton, New South Wales, Australia, works as a research
phonetician at the National Acoustic Laboratories in Sydney. She also
works toward a master's degree in clinical audiology at Macquarie University.
She has used her scholarship award of Aus.$5,860 to attend the 37th International
Audiology Congress in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A., in September 2004, where she
presented findings of her recent research into hearing aid use in
infants.
Leonie
Walsh (pictured above and to the right) of Balmain, New South Wales, works
as an auditory-verbal therapist and teacher at St. Gabriel's School for
Hearing-Impaired Children in Castle Hill. An award of Aus.$5,230 allowed
her to attend an international conference on newborn hearing screening
in Como, Italy, in May 2004, followed by an Alexander Graham Bell satellite
event focused on spoken language options for families with hearing-impaired
children. Before the conference, the funds allowed her to travel to the
United Kingdom to visit the Speech, Language, and Hearing Centre in London
and the Oxford Auditory-Verbal Program.
South Pacific Area Investment Pays Off for Hearing Impaired
A former Quota Scholar from Australia is at work in Canada on ways to improve the world for hearing-impaired people.
Dr.
Ian Bruce (right) received a Quota South Pacific Area bursary to attend
a conference after he completed his Ph.D. at the University of Melbourne,
New South Wales, Australia. The conference in the United States allowed
Ian to meet with other researchers and get feedback on his doctoral dissertation.
"I subsequently wrote a journal article based on the paper that I
presented at the conference," he says. "This was a crucial experience
early in my training as a hearing researcher, which has obviously borne fruit."
In 1998, Ian began a postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. In 2002, he began an assistant professorship of electrical and computer engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, where he also runs the Auditory Engineering Lab.
"I am continuing to do hearing research," notes Ian, "into the normal and impaired ear, hearing aid design, and the neural mechanisms underlying tinnitus."
Fund-raising Idea Spreads from Suriname to Rotterdam
Quota members from the Rotterdam club in the Netherlands knew a good fund-raising idea when they saw it in Suriname—and they brought the idea home to try. The result was a minor success with a major learning curve.
Inspired by QI of Suriname's successful annual "Men Cook Out," Rotterdam Quota members organized a similar food festival in which they recruited male friends and family members to cook to raise service money.
While the helpers were loyal, the food delicious, and the ambiance wonderful, the planning committee learned several lessons in the process that will help all clubs in implementing other clubs' successful projects in their own communities:
- Begin by generating enthusiasm within the club for the service project;
unless everyone is excited about the idea, the planning committee will
have a hard time creating a successful event.
- Recruit more helping hands than you think you need.
- Publicize the event heavily to attract a large crowd.
- Charge prices that make the event worth the time and effort demanded of volunteers.
Notes club member Yvonne Groh, "When the moment for our Mannen koken voor Quota arrived, the sun was shining brightly, the location was excellent, and it all looked very nice. We wanted to make a simple start, meaning that we had to be able to handle things."
Sign Classes Attract Young Learners
An American Sign Language class sponsored by the New Castle Quota club in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., attracted 15 students—three of them still in elementary school!
The class included five weekly sessions lasting two hours each. On the first night, a dozen enthusiastic adults were surprised to see three little girls in their midst. As the weeks progressed, the girls' dedication to learning to sign motivated the entire class to achieve. And the presence of one deaf classmate provided invaluable insights to all students into the need and value of signing.
Each student received a certificate of achievement at the end of the last class. Because the small group had bonded so well, most of the class left with tears of joy at their success— thanks to the efforts of the Quota club that provided the opportunity.
Liverpool Quota Club Listens to Community Needs
The Liverpool Quota club in New South Wales, Australia, listens to the needs of their community—and responds with service that makes a difference.
When baby Sara was born with hearing impairment in Liverpool, doctors recommended hearing aids. But the pricey devices were beyond the means of her parents, Iranian refugees living in Australia under temporary protection visas and ineligible for government medical benefits. Liverpool Quota came to the family's rescue with a set of hearing aids and a new world of sound for Sara. Notes past club president Betty Bennett (pictured here with Sara and her mother), "Our club was very pleased to be able to make this family's life a little easier."
When club members discovered that the Liverpool area suffers New South Wales' highest rate of diabetes, the club planned an awareness campaign in response. Medical firms, researchers, hospital diabetic units, Diabetes Australia, eye specialists, podiatrists, and fresh food suppliers gathered for the Quota Diabetes Expo to inform Liverpuddlians of the symptoms, causes, effects, and treatment of the disease.
Extensive publicity attracted large crowds for the day-long event, including lectures from renowned Australian doctors, a formal luncheon suitable for diabetics, a fashion show, raffles, and plenty of information about the disease and about Quota International. Profits from the money-making events were donated to local hospitals to purchase insulin monitoring equipment.
When police in Coolum Beach, Queensland, Australia, offered the local Rotary club some unclaimed bicycles, members eagerly repaired and painted them to look brand new. But they weren't sure what to do with them.
Then, they remembered Quota.
A Coolum Beach Quota club member spoke to the Rotary club several months before about their service mission to help disadvantaged women and children. So, the Rotarians contacted the Quotarian and proposed a joint service project.
Quota volunteers sprang into action to locate deserving youth to receive the bicycles. With the help of a care worker from the local youth community center, Coolum Beach Quota found three children in a family with great need of transportation. The eldest was about to start high school and would use one of the bikes for the several kilometers' journey each day.
The Quota club purchased helmets and padlocks for the bicycles and joined Rotary members and local police officers to present the gifts to the family. Adds Quota volunteer Cindy Arbuthnot, "All the thanks we needed was the expression on the children's faces."
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