David Abbey (pictured right) gave a short talk on the history and importance of the scholarship named after his father, Past RI President Royce Abbey and his mother Jean Abbey. The idea of the scholarship was formulated in 1989, the year after Royce's year as President. It is designed to support and fund selected people from under-developed nations to come to Australia to learn more about their vocation with a view to utilising their new-found knowledge back in their country. Our very own Chris Ochaya from Uganda was a recipient of this scholarship.

David also talked about the Royce Abbey Award which is given to Rotarians who have shown a strong commitment to helping the scholarship recipients. If a club wishes to nominate someone for the award, they pay $1,000 towards to the Scholarship Fund. Since its inception, there have been 327 awards presented which has amounted to $327,000 being given to the fund. Recently, our current RI President, Ian Riseley, was presented with a Royce Abbey Award.

David thanked our club for taking on the very large responsibility of hosting Chris. He believes that this was one of the most successful scholarship projects. He advised that Werribee Rotary recently contributed $1,000 to the fund and, in parallel with that, had nominated Brian Ahmed to receive the Royce Abbey Award for his dedication in supporting Chris during his 3-month stay in Victoria.

Brian expressed his thanks for this recognition but was quick to point out that he was helped by other Rotarians and many agricultural businesses that hosted Chris and taught him some invaluable farming lessons.