Latest News

Rotary Prahran started RIMERN and with fifteen Rotary Club partners we now deliver around 8 full house lots of furniture, appliances and homewares to people setting up their secure homes in Inner Melbourne, after tough times experiencing homelessness, domestic violence, refugee displacement and more.

All the goods are donated from householders and businesses around Melbourne, collected, cleaned & rehomed by our wonderful team of volunteers. Want to know more? Visit the RIMERN website!

From Glen Allen School in Glen Waverley to Safe Haven in Siem Reap, these donated disability aids for children are changing lives!

Rotary Prahran has partnered with Rotary Kampala Kawempe to provide 500 mosquito nets to poor families in water sodden slums in Uganda. In the wet season, deadly mosquitos kill mainly children, so local Rotarians & Rotaractors have identified families in need and have delivered nets, education about preventing malaria and other essentials. Our Club was grateful for the support of a District 9800 International Grant to partly fund this life saving project in Kampala. 

Young leaders of tomorrow at Prahran High School have just formed the PHS Citizens Interact Club, under the guidance of Deputy Principal Shannan Roberts, the mentorship of District 9800 Interact Chair Chris Richardson and our Club.

Interactors from years 7 - 9 will develop their volunteering and community service projects around homelessness, animal welfare and other causes dear to their hearts, as they build skills in conducting meetings, taking leadership roles, developing projects and making friendships with other Interactors in Australia and around the world.

Rotary is a global organisation with diverse membership and Rotary Clubs are being encouraged to really represent the communities they serve. From it's beginnings as a businessmen's club in Chicago, Rotary looks & acts a lot differently today!

Rotary Prahran is now a member of RORP... Rotary Overseas Recycled Playgrounds, a project of Rotary Flemington Kensington that saves retired playgrounds from landfill by dismantling them, shipping them overseas to be rehomed thanks to Rotarians in developing countries.

Team leader Will Slade is pictured with Ian McMaster, unbolting the Victoria Gardens playground in July 2020.

It's cold and there's a coronavirus global pandemic, so hundreds of homeless people in Melbourne are being given emergency accommodation in hotels and motels around the city. Fed during the week but not the weekends? It was time for collaboration & action, with Uniting (formerly Prahran Mission), FareShare & Food Bank for food, Pinchapoo for personal care toiletries and Rotary Prahran to pack & deliver! First delivery was friday 5th June, from now on every friday! Join us?

Twenty five years ago Rotarians, Lions & the City of Whitehorse established EERN, the Eastern Emergency Relief Network in Mitcham, to collect donated furniture and household goods and make them available to clients of relief agencies who were setting up new homes after coming out of long term homelessness, domestic violence, incarceration and more.

After helping thousands of families in need, six years ago EERN helped Rotarians in the western suburbs establish WERN (Western Emergency Relief Network) in Derrimut, and now both these Emergency Relief Networks are helping Rotary Prahran and other Rotary Clubs in the inner Melbourne area, to establish RIMERN.... Rotary Inner Melbourne Emergency Relief Network, so that the Melbourne Metropolitan network of Emergency Relief Agencies will be complete from East to West.

We've been honoured with a Rotary Citation and Gold distinction for the 2019/20 Rotary year.

The Rotary Citation is a significant award that honours clubs whose leaders and members show a commitment to success. 

Rotary Prahran members Sue Vincent, Peter Schneider & David Rosenberg, together with Rotary Glen Eira President Lili Teichman & Rotarians from Caulfield & Brighton North, have raised much needed funds & sourced gratefully received foodstuffs & sanitary items for families of African origin who are struggling in the corona crisis. First delivery to Springvale was April 30th, with more to come over the next 3 months.

While we practice 'social distancing' and for the health & safety of the children & volunteers on our program, Homework Club will finish until further notice on Thursday 19th March.

Rotary Aiding Mobility Program is growing every month, with more donations of wheelchairs, walkers & other mobility aids from people all over Melbourne who have found us here on the Rotary Prahran website.

One amazing donation from the Glen Allen Special School literally filled our DIK truck and all the items have just been shipped to a school for disabled children in Siem Reap Cambodia! Nothing is wasted, we supply these pre-loved mobillity aids to needy Australians and people overseas who are in contact with their own local Rotary Club. Got a donation? Please contact Peter on 0417 322 617 or send us your name, number & the location of the goods via our website & thank you!

Thanks to Prahran Rotarian Helen Robbins who has run Rotary Sews since 2016, more socially disadvantaged people have made friends & learned to sew at our weekly Rotary Sews classes, thursdays 1 - 3pm at the Freemasons Hall in St. Edmonds Road Prahran (behind the Library)

With donated fabrics & sewing machines, this small but productive group is another example of Rotary in Action and places are open for new students in 2023! Contact us for more details.

Membership of the facebook group for Rotarians for Bees is growing fast & globally & Rotary Prahran are part of building awareness of the plight of bees & pollinators and their essential role in global food production.

Over 430 members share projects, stories & news about bees & pollinators, please join us (Rotarian or not) to be part of the support network for bees (both feral and honeybees) & pollinators HERE.

Teaching sewing & knitting to local residents is another great Community Service project of Rotary Prahran with the generous support of Freemasons Victoria, who have donated the use of their hall in St. Edmonds Road Prahran for our weekly sewing & knitting classes.

'Prahran Renewal' at Horace Petty (Housing) Estate in South Yarra has now handed over the Homework Club to Rotary Prahran & the number of kids coming every week is multiplying!

After a very competitive application process, Sen.Sgt Martin Bourke from Victoria Police Prahran Station has been successful in being accepted onto the Victoria Police Leaders Mentorship Program, being paired with experienced business mentor & Prahran Rotarian Gilly Swinnerton.

Rotary Prahran is again collaborating with various Rotary clubs in continuing to build toilets and water tanks in Baguia, a remote area of Timor Leste. Training the local people to do the installation, Rotarians are surveying & guiding this project that is improving the health & educational outcomes for the community. 

What makes a vibrant club? District Governor Neville writes ...

Finding even basic work in hospitality takes training and without a Safe Food Handling Certificate, residents of the Horace Petty Estate in Prahran can neither look for jobs in the many local cafes and restaurants that Prahran is famous for,  OR host their fellow residents at events to showcase their home country cuisines.

Nine ladies, from Tibet, Vietnam, Fiji, Ethiopia and Australia gained their certificates from NMIT (Prahran Polytechnic) trainer Amanda over a 2 day course on  1st and 8th December.
 

When Toorak Primary School put out a call for help with classroom reading, the Rotary Club of Prahran rallied, and since 2013, Club members have helped improve individual children's reading abilities and their learning outcomes.

Jan Rosenberg was delighted to be festooned with thank you gifts from her students as they headed off for Christmas holidays!

Meet Paris and Grace, our Club's sponsored students at RYPEN, a personal development camp held over a weekend twice a year.

From Box Hill hospital to Rotary's Donations In Kind warehouse to Lucena City, Quezon Province in the Philippines... this medical equipment is being recycled in the best possible, Rotary, way!