Rotary Peace Fellowship Alumni Association
Speaker Yung Nietschke (centre) with Rotarians Sue Graetz and Robert Brookes.
'Dynamite comes in small packages,' observed one Rotarian after last night's presentation by Yung Nietschke who had come to address the club on her work with the Rotary Peace Fellowship Alumni Association.
Yung started by telling Rotarians a bit about her background in Vietnam and her family's ultimate arrival in Australia. It made for difficult listening at times, not a happy start to life for a little girl, but a compelling story nonetheless. After Saigon fell to the Communist party, Yung's father was targeted as he was a naval officer who had fought with the Americans. Whilst the family suffered the same problems as every citizen with rationed food, water and electricity and being constantly watched, he was taken to be 're-educated' in one of the camps where he suffered appalling conditions, including torture.
Once he was released in 1983 Yung's parents made a conscious choice to leave Vietnam, fleeing what would have been a lifetime of persecution and a bleak future. The meticulously planned escape was done in the utmost secret, with no chance of goodbyes for fear of putting family members in danger. After a terrifying journey by boat and a three-month stay in a refugee camp, the family finally arrived in Australia. Yung observed that life was good in Australia, the family worked and studied hard but they found the Australian people very kind and were able to build a good life for themselves.
After graduating from university Yung travelled back to Vietnam to work with the Vietnamese government. She worked with the United Nations Education Organisation to help the government develop a peace curriculum for primary schools. It was here she met her husband, Brett, an Australian! Perfectly aligned with Yung's wish to contribute to lasting peace and conflict resolution in the world was Rotary's Peace Fellowship and she applied for, and was awarded, a scholarship to study at the University of Carolina in America where she undertook a masters in Educational Policy. Recognising the importance of education as a tool for creating pathways to peace, she obtained the skills needed to work in post-conflict situations and designed a curriculum for the reconstruction of the education system in Iraq for the World Band and later with AusAID in their Afghanistan program.
Yung said that the Rotary fellowship has created a network of over 1000 people all working towards peace and conflict resolution. It is working in over 100 countries worldwide, in government and non-government agencies, UN agencies and academia.
The Rotary Peace Fellowship Alumni Association was established and work is in progress to incorporate it into Australia with an aim to increase networking opportunities among fellows and collaborate with Rotary clubs and districts to promote peace around the world. Many Peace fellows are already working with Rotarians on peacebuilding projects with a third of the alumni reporting collaboration with a Rotary or Rotaract club on a project.
On a finishing note, Yung gave her thoughts on a recent trip to Timor Leste, where Rotary was the largest non-government contributor of aid. She saw firsthand the desperation of the people and the help given by Rotary and said that is why she wished to continue to pursue her passion to work on international development to help lift people out of poverty by creating opportunities for them and their families, especially women and girls.