Last week Dorene and Steve Carroll were our guest speakers. Steve is a member of the Newcastle Harbour Rotary Club and is our District 9670 RAWCS Chairman.
We were captivated by the presentation of Steve and Dorene Carroll. Like many people in Australia, I did not know the extent of the problems with landmines in Laos. The US carried out bombing missions approximately every 8 minutes for 9 years, totalling about 580,000 flights in Laos during the conflict.
With over 270 million canisters being dropped covering virtually every province of Laos, and each canister contained 200 to 680 tennis ball size bombs or butterfly shape UXO (unexploded ordinance), one can only imagine the amount of such devices scattered on the land.
Laos being a neutral country at that time, earned the tag as “the most bombed country per capita in history.”
Steve explained a previous project in Laos where he and fellow Vietnam veterans transformed a village that was devastated by bombs during the Vietnam War.
With approximately 30 percent of bombs dropped on Laos failing to detonate it is not surprising local people were reluctant to cultivate their lands resulting in extreme poverty. Steve and his team made a difference in Ban Xai, a village in Laos, where they removed 80 bombs, built a school and dormitory, resulting in over 1,000 kids attending the school knowing that the area was safe.
Steve also revealed startling statistics on victims of malaria, development of vaccines and his personal crusade against malaria.
Steve and Dorene talked about their “personal crusade” to help eradicate malaria. Steve and his wife Dorene took their daughter Michelle on a trip to Sabah in Borneo in 1989- the kind of trip so many young Australians do now to malaria-infected countries.
Two weeks later fever struck Steve and Michelle. Just three months later after being evacuated to Australia, Michelle lost the battle. “She was our baby and for the first couple of years we were just devastated until we found Rotary,” he said. Steve spoke optimistically about a new malaria vaccine developed by researchers at Queensland’s Griffith University that has recently passed it’s first test in human trials. Steve has suffered 3 primary infections and 4 relapses.
“People don’t think of malaria as being much because we’re in a nice safe country but if we can get this vaccine out there, just imagine all the lives it could save.” Steve and his wife Dorene are now working hard to raise funds to support this project.
They are encouraging the clubs in his district to donate $500 and he will match those donations dollar for dollar to RAM.
President Sof presented Steve and Dorene a small donation from our Club.
