The Rotary Club of Gibraltar has held its second annual presentation of the Rotary Junior Community Award at the Rock Hotel. Her Worship the Mayor of Gibraltar, Mrs. Olga Zammitt and the Minister for Culture, Sport and Heritage, the Hon. Edwin Reyes joined guests from the St John Ambulance, the Environmental Agency, the churches and Bayside and Westside schools.The event was to honour twenty-one students who received the Award and parents, Rotarians and the youngsters themselves swelled the numbers present to well over one hundred. Each young person was presented with a framed certificate by the Mayor and a lapel badge from the President of the Rotary Club, Raju Alwani. This followed nine months of hard work (additional to their school work) concentrating on community activities of various kinds. This included public service projects, physical recreation, the development of their own personal skills and a series of activities in the community that required them to become involved with public commemorations, meetings, religious and cultural issues and an appreciation of the Arts.
Excellent work was displayed by the students and was enjoyed by many of the guests, including the Mayor and the Minister. During the past year, senior students from both schools also gave assistance to their younger colleagues, and, to recognise the time and effort given, they too received framed certificates from the Mayor and the Rotary Club's President-Elect, Julian Risso.
The Rotary Club expressed its appreciation to The Mayor for her speech of welcome and congratulations to both the students for their endeavours and to the Rotary Club for running the scheme. The Mayor, the Minister and all the guests were thanked for their support of the scheme. In particular, the St John Ambulance Brigade, the Environment Agency and the Methodist Church were thanked for their co-operation
with the community projects required of the scheme.
The Head Teachers of the two schools were thanked for their tolerance of the intrusion of the Rotary Club into their already busy lives, but hoped that the scheme would run on into the future as the Club continued to forge the link between school and community. In particular, Mr Colin Skinner and Ms Belinda Bautista were thanked for their assistance in organising the running of the scheme within Bayside and Westside schools, respectively.
Rotary President Raju spoke of some of the other activities organised by the Rotary Club, including their Awards to Gibraltar citizens, the Morocco Project, the street collections for the Haiti earthquake relief and for the eradication of Polio worldwide. He also thanked the Rotarians who had operated the Award scheme over the year which included organisers Geoff Morgan and Sylvia Leay. In conclusion, Mr.Morgan himself pointed out that while the certificate and the lapel badge represented the tangible outcome of work over the past three terms, the real value of the scheme was in the confidence and personal knowledge gained by the students, and the benefit that came from having succeeded in achieving the award. The young people were charged to wear their their badges with pride and to encourage next year's entrants to the school to take up the challenge as they had.