History

Since it began in 1955, the Rotary Club of Prahran has contributed both financially and with labour to communities near and far, and upheld the core Rotary values of Diversity, Fellowship, Service, Integrity and Leadership.

Prahran is a small club (but growing!) where individual members have plenty of opportunity to propose projects to support, to get involved in a range of activities and challenges whilst making new friends and enjoying the Rotary fellowship both at local and at interstate and international conference levels.

All our activities reflect the Rotary motto "Service Above Self" and underpin the Rotary priorities and areas of focus:-

1. Promoting Peace
2. Fighting Disease
3. Providing Clean Water
4. Saving Mothers & Children
5. Supporting Education
6. Growing Local Economies

while concentrating on the Rotary Five Avenues of Service

1. Community Service (local)
2. Club Service
3. Vocational Service
4. Youth
5. International Service

Some of our activities include:

• Fundraising to build toilets in secondary schools in India, enabling teenage girls to continue their education after puberty, reducing their likelihood of early marriage and improving their health and career prospects. In conjuction with "We Can't Wait" NGO and Rotary Box Hill Central, this initiative is fast becoming a global project and is actively supported by fellow Rotarians in India and the USA.
  
  
• Supporting many activities of the residents of the Horace Petty Estate (DHHS public housing in Malvern Road South Yarra) with Safe Food Handling Certificate training
  
  
• Running the popular HOMEWORK CLUB for primary school aged children twice weekly for over 4 years (once weekly from 2020)
  
  
• Sponsoring needy children at Stonnington Primary School to go on school camps when their families are unable to afford to send them.
  
  
• Planting natives (in conjunction with Stonnington Cluster clubs, Malvern, Chadstone East Malvern & Toorak) at the Glen Iris Park wetlands.
  
  
• Participating in international youth exchange, in 2014/15 hosted German student Tess Ackershott who attendied Presentation Convent and undertook Year 11 studies & ( more about youth exchanges here) & in 2019 sponsored local student Lara Maritos on her exchange to Germany.
  
  
• sponsoring young people to leadership programs such as Model United Nations Assembly (MUNA), Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA), Rotary Youth Program of Enrichment (RYPEN), and promoting the concept of service as a desirable quality amongst local secondary & tertiary colleges.
  
  
• Supporting St. Kilda Mums with a donation to help them equip their warehouse with much needed shelving.
  
  
• Building awareness of & fundraising for Rotary International's global project to eradicate polio, begun in 1985 & now with only 3 countries not polio free.
  
  
• Supporting Rotarians against Malaria with both funding and supplying mosquito bed nets to a village in Cambodia.
  
  
• Supporting the Donations in Kind warehouse in Footscray, where useful equipment is collected and shipped to projects overseas.