In Gear | Rotary in Southern New Zealand Issue 1 | Page 8

MONGOLIAN VOCATIONAL TRAINING TEAM

Vocational Training Team member Julie
Dockrill, of the Rotary Club of Timaru.

ROTARY INGENUITY SAVING HUNDREDS
OF MOTHERS’ AND BABIES’ LIVES
Take one passionate, determined Australasian
Vocational Training Team, add backing from
District 9980, throw in a Rotary Foundation
global grant, and what do you get?
“Mindboggling” progress in Mongolia’s maternal health
system – and hundreds of mothers’ and babies’ lives
already being saved each year, thanks to a very special
delivery: childbirth education.
The ground-breaking programme, however, almost
didn’t come to pass – Rotary’s involvement in Mongolia
was originally intended to centre on a water well
project.
Mongolian Maternal Health
Project
VTT
leader
Gary
Dennison, of the Rotary Club
of Waimate, says the initial
link to Mongolia was through
a friend’s son, a geologist, who
was working in the country’s
mining industry, and the
possibility for an improved
fresh water supply for some
needy community.

The geologist’s wife had recently given birth in the
United Kingdom, and had a chance meeting in a
park with an Australian, who worked in a Mongolian
maternity hospital. From that serendipitous encounter,
a plan was hatched: to deliver much-needed childbirth
education to Mongolian health workers in a bid to stem
the country’s tragic infant and maternal mortality rates.

STOP PRESS
Rotary Club of Timaru’s Julie Dockrill has
just been awarded a Paul Harris Fellow
for her amazing efforts on the Mongolian
Maternal Health Project.

However, after initial scoping, it wasn’t long before he
contacted Gary saying such was Mongolia’s challenging
geology, finding potable water might prove an
expensive – if not impossible – order.
Having lived and worked previously in Mongolia, and
recognising the country – which has a population about
the same as New Zealand’s but is, geographically, 10
times the size – had high needs in other areas, too,
both men set about thinking of an alternative project
for Rotary to spearhead.

“Going back to Rotary’s
key areas of focus,
maternal health and
infant
education
seemed to fit best
with the needs of
Mongolia,” Gary says.

While he couldn’t
join the team due
to overseas work
commitments, Gary
oversaw planning of the project’s first phase, which saw
a team leader and five Kiwi and Australian midwives
– including the Rotary Club of Timaru’s Julie Dockrill –
travel to Mongolia in 2013, just four months after the
idea was settled upon.
Once there, the team delivered training at three
centres throughout the country, and also developed a
childbirth education manual, which had been drafted
by the Kiwi and Australian midwives, and translated
into Mongolian.
“Mongolia had just signed up to the World Health

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