Vocational Service
Each year we organise Enterprise Forums featuring speakers on the theme of innovation. Recent forums include a presentation by Robert Klupacs, CEO of Bionics Institute, who spoke about developments in bionics as a non-invasive method of diagnosing and treating chronic disease.
Vocational visits to innovative worksites are also held during the year.
Club members are encouraged to contribute articles to the Club Bulletin on their vocational experience and current trends in their vocations.
The Club recently instituted, in conjunction with the University of Melbourne, the Rotary Hawthorn Peter Doherty Prize for Infection and Immunity Travel. The prize, worth $5,000 p.a over five years, will be awarded annually to a high achieving University of Melbourne PhD student undertaking research at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. The prize will enable the students to advance their PhD research by attending a local or overseas conference.
Other vocationally oriented activities are carried out at Auburn High School in conjunction with the Youth Services committee.
Youth Service
Rotary Hawthorn partners with Auburn High School in providing resources that would not otherwise be available to the school and to individual students in financial need.
Each year members and friends of the Club volunteer to act as interviewers in simulated job interviews for Year 9 students. The interviews are part of the school’s ‘Education for Life’ curriculum.
The Club provides scholarships to enable financially disadvantaged students at the school to complete their secondary studies. We also fund students to attend the National Youth Science Forum, the Santos Science Experience program, and to participate in Rotary’s Model United Nations Assembly (MUNA) debating program.
Currenty the Club is exploring with the school the possibility of setting up an Alumni group.
As part of the Rotary Student Exchange program, a student from MLC was sponsored by Rotary Hawthorn to attend the equivalent of year 10 in France.
