The Conquistador
February 2, 2016
Chartered April 4, 1980
Volume 36 - Issue 20
Rotary Club of Charlotte Harbor
Meets Tuesday at 7:00 AM, Cultural Center of Charlotte County, Port Charlotte, Florida
‘All I Can Do is Tell Their Stories’By Rose George, 2/1/16 Rotarian
She sends me her alias in a Skype message. Who
she is, what she does, and where she does it make it
too dangerous to use her real name. She is in Kurdish
Iraq, in the northern part of the country, which is in
the middle of so many battles, wars, and conflicts that
it’s hard for outsiders – and sometimes even for local
people – to keep track. But she has a focus amid the
chaos: She works with Syrian and Yazidi refugees
who have been targeted, tortured, and driven out of
their homes by the Islamic State.
OFFICERS
AND
DIRECTORS
2015-2016
PRESIDENT
Mark Payne
PRES-ELECT
Bob Clendenin
SECRETARY
Rick Zander
TREASURER
Sherry Penfield
PAST
PRESIDENT
Dave Powell
SERGEANT
AT ARMS
Craig Olson
DIRECTORS
Craig Olson
The name she has chosen to use is Evin.
She is 32 years old. She is Kurdish, too, although
from Turkey, not Iraq, and she has close family ties
with Yazidis. “They are Kurds, too,” she says. The
world knows little enough about Kurds; Yazidis are
even more obscure, although they have been in the
headlines in recent years. In Iraq, they numbered
some 500,000, many of them living near Mount Sinjar, close to the Syrian border. Their religion is an
ancient and syncretic one, with elements from Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, and Islam. Some Yazidi practices resemble Muslim ones: They won’t eat pork, for
example. But for centuries, Yazidis have been persecuted, mostly by Muslims, as “devil worshippers.”
Yazidis no longer live in the town of Sinjar, because
there is hardly any Sinjar left to live in. When ISIS
forces invaded it in August 2014, they massacred or
enslaved whomever they could. Thousands of women
were sold as sex slaves. The rest of the population
fled, some to Mount Sinjar, where they have been
sheltering ever since, suffering through brutal winter
and hellish summer temperatures on the mountain.
Many have died.
Wayne showing his true COLORS!
Date
Greeter
Bulletin
TODAY
Jim H
Joe R
9 Feb
Rick H
Dave P
16 Feb
Don H
Sherry P
23 Feb
Wally K
Mark P
When you are listed for Bulletin duty, please send a
Bulletin article (max 300 words about any subject
with relevant images) no later than 3 days after the
date your name appears to Nick Carter @
[email protected]
Evin’s route to her work with refugees has been a
circuitous one. After earning a degree in humanities,
she worked to highlight human rights violations….
Club #4308
Rotary International President: Gary Huang
District Governor, District 6960: Cyndi Doragh
Assistant Governor, Area 7: Darryl Keys
Last Weeks Meeting
At Last Weeks ‘Meeting’- Nick Carter gave a brief rundown of the status of RYLA that is fast
approaching. Nick showing off the Thank you banner from the Interact at Irmo High School
in South Carolina. This Banner was presented to the PCHS Interact club thanking them for
providing assistance to them after the Flood
last year.
“If this Rotary of
ours is destined to
be more than a
mere passing of
time, it will be
because you and I
have learned the
importance of
bearing with each
other’s infirmities,
the value of
toleration.”
Nick Carter with the Interact poster from Irmo
The Irmo Interact Banner
Paul P. Harris,
Founder of Rotary
The Trivia Guys!
Darryl, Steve and Nick presenting the club a check
from a special trivia night.
Cont’d….‘All I Can Do is Tell Their Stories’By Rose George, 2/1/16 Rotarian
against Kurds in the region known as Kurdistan, which encompasses parts of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran.
Then based in Turkey’s Kurdish region, she turned her focus onto huge dams that Turkey is building and
their impact on people and the environment. She first visited northern Iraq to see how the dam-building was
affecting the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which descend from the Turkish mountains and flow through Syria
and Iraq to the Persian Gulf. The Euphrates is already nearly dry.
THE
FOUR-WAY
TEST
Of things we
think, say or do
First,
Is it the
TRUTH?
Second,
Is it FAIR
to all
concerned?
Third,
Will it build
GOODWILL &
BETTER
FRIENDSHIPS?
Then, as the situation in Syria deteriorated, she began to work with humanitarian nongovernmental organizations as a translator. After meeting her fiancé, a Kurd from Syria who was living in Iraq, she went there to
marry him and to live, and began to volunteer in the refugee camps to which thousands of Syrians and
Yazidis have fled. She was trying to figure out how to continue her studies when a native Iraqi who was a
2014 graduate of the Rotary Peace Center at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok suggested she apply for a
Rotary Peace Fellowship.
There was a problem, however: There was no Rotary club in Iraq to sponsor her. But Evin is resourceful. Her
application was taken on by the Rotary Club of Asunción, Paraguay, and she was accepted. “The peace fellowship was a milestone in my life,” she says. She was captivated, first by traveling outside her region to a
“whole new world,” and then by the people she met on the fellowship, who came from countries that she had
only read about: Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the United States. She traveled to Cambodia, where, having read
about the Khmer Rouge, she met people who had suffered under the regime. “I learned so much,” she says,
and she shared her own knowledge with the other students in the program. “Kurdistan has so many difficult
problems,” she explains, adding that outsiders aren’t aware of most of them. A teacher and peace fellow who
promoted music as a peace-building mechanism, for instance, didn’t know that in Turkey, playing Kurdish
music could lead to imprisonment.
LaMonte Adams is a lieutenant in the Philadelphia Police Department who studied with Evin at the Rotary
Peace Center. His first impression of her was of a quiet person and an intent listener. “I found that she will
tell you exactly how she feels and what she thinks about a topic, yet she always does it in the most respectful
way possible,” he says. “She will only engage in conversations when she has a relevant opinion that will enhance the discussion. She does not talk just for the sake of talking.”
By the end of the program, Adams says, he considered her the “standout” among a group of talented peace
fellows. “I could not have been more impressed by an individual,” he says. “She is deeply passionate about
issues that relate to the lives of people in her community, but is also very concerned about people across the
Will it be
BENEFICIAL to globe.”
all concerned?
Now, Evin works for NGOs and for journalists, setting up interviews and translating. She goes wherever she
is asked, traveling to Syria three or four times a year and spending a lot of time in the camps with displaced
Yazidis and Syrian refugees. Although there are schools and international organizations, she says, conditions
are poor. People live in tents, which are hot in Iraq’s punishing summer and cold in winter.
Fourth,
She also works with the United Nations and other organizations to document the stories of Yazidi women and
girls. “I am trying to do my best to tell anything they want to tell.” Evin recounts the story of a young girl
whose experience was typical. Her village was overrun by ISIS, and the girl was raped. “They killed all the
men; they took the women and children. Girls were sold in the bazaar.” Women who won’t sell are often
killed. In Sinjar, recently retaken by Kurdish fighters, mass graves, including one where only older women
were buried, have been discovered.
Port Charlotte
High School
Advisor
Rick Hayman
Nick Carter
The buying, selling, and mass rape of women and girls by ISIS has been well-documented, including by Human Rights Watch, which published a chilling report last year. ISIS has openly admitted that it uses enslavement and mass rape as a policy. Women are considered spoils of war.
But there’s another, coldly strategic reason for the selling of girls: They can be used to lure foreign fighters.
The Rest of the Story is in this months Magazine
“ In the end, We only REGRET the chances we didn’t take”
Charlotte Harbor Roster
Meera Adhi $□ (Adhi) [email protected] C 941-661-7340
José Basilio $□♦ (Miriam □) [email protected] H 941-637-6754 C 941-380-8442
Cheryl Bowman $□ (Rodney) [email protected] H 863-993-3373 C 941-286-3087
Nick Carter □ [email protected] W 941-484-4341 C 941-544-3997
Stephen Carter $ □♦ (Marilyn) [email protected] W 941-625-4175x214 C 941-544-3961
Bob Clendenin $ □▲ (Linda □) [email protected] C 941-286-1383
Michael Colgan $□♦ (Kate) [email protected] W 800-833-2373 C 239-872-1171
Cliff Fisher [email protected] C 941-661-6979
Pierre J.“PJ” Fisher $□▲ (Carol) [email protected] H 941-624-5148 C 941-661-2986
Tom Fisher $□ (Trudi □) H 941-505-0990 C 941-628-1125
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Jim Hageman $□♦ (Jackie) [email protected] H 941-347-8204 C 941-676-2519
Rick Hayman$□▲ (Charlene) [email protected] H 941-979-6757
Don Helt $□ (Sandy) [email protected] H 941-575-2408 C 765-506-0924
Todd Helt [email protected] W 941-268-2036 C 510-506-8633
Wally Keller $ □♦ (Jacqueline) H 941-627-0854 C 941-457-3447
Darryl Keys $□♦ (Samantha) [email protected] W 941-258-9402 H 941-830-8254 C 941-214-0150
Nancy Lisby $□ [email protected] H 941-639-6035
Ryland Lovett $ □♦■ (Marcia □) [email protected] W 941-637-1123
Robert McDuffie $□♦ (Cindy) [email protected] W 941-625-6800 H 941-625-0359 C 941-769-6291
Mike Moody $□♦ (Sherrie) [email protected] H 941-625-1992 C 941-661-0140
Craig Olson (Dawn) [email protected] W 941-763-7644 C 941-626-5880
Mark Payne (Katharine) [email protected] W 941-743-5365 C 304-685-4663
Sherry Penfield $□♦ [email protected] H 941-743-6419 C 802-380-1109
G. David Powell $□ (Arlene) [email protected] W 941-206-1210 H 941-627-6014 C 941-204-1958
Josue Prieto [email protected] W 941-629-3170 C 352-650-8223
Carl Rehling $□♦ (Bonnie) [email protected] H 941-347-7795 C 941-661-6041
Joe Rezek $□▲ (Ann) [email protected] H 941-625-9553 C 941-276-0032
Wayne Salladé $□♦ (Vicki) [email protected] W 941-505-4620 H 941-697-8544 C 941-628-5536
Tom Setchel ▲ [email protected] W 941-624-6339 H 941-766-1809 C 706-436-0946
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Rick Zander □▲ (Esther) [email protected] C 805-637-5921
Sustaining Member $ Paul Harris Fellow □ Past President Charlotte Harbor ♦ Charter Member ■ Past President Another Club ▲
Club mailing address: P.O. Box 510391, Punta Gorda, Florida 33951-0391
Nearby Rotary Clubs For Make Ups
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Arcadia
Noon - DeSoto Memorial Hospital
North Port Central
Noon - Old World Restaurant
Murdock
7:15 am - Perkins Restaurant
Breakfast at 7:00 am
Englewood
Noon - Englewood Hospital
Harbor Heights - Peace River
7:00 am - Charlotte Harbor Yacht Club
Except first Wednesday - 7:00 pm
The
Conquistador
Bob Clendenin,
Chris Gover, Darryl Keys,
Nicholas Carter
Printed by the Cultural Center of
www.charlotteharborrotary.org
Revised 1 February 2016
Punta Gorda
Noon - Isles Yacht Club
Punta Gorda
District 6960 Web Site
www.rotary6960.org
Rotary International Web Site
www.rotary.org