My first Rotary Presentation!

On 17 March, I gave my first Rotary presentation to my host club, Sea Point Rotary. These presentations are a bit weird because I’ve been given so much mixed advice about what to/not to say. I kind of took it all and put together what I thought would be informative and interesting. Of course as an ambassadorial scholar, part of my responsibility is to give some background about where I’m from and the area that I’m representing, so my presentation basically covered these main points: brief introduction of myself (showed a picture of my family, where I’m from, what I studied in undergrad, etc), some info about SC, background and photos of Charleston, CofC, Murrells Inlet, info about the Mt. Pleasant Rotary club (my sponsor club) and then I turned to an issue that I care about and one that I think transcends cultural differences and country boundaries – human trafficking. I was amazed at how few people had any idea about human trafficking. I gave a brief overview about what trafficking is as well as some statistics about it worldwide. Then I compared the types of trafficking that are common in the US and SA and compared the two a bit – I think everyone really enjoyed the comparative and informative elements of this portion of the presentation. (I also plan on researching human trafficking in Southern Africa for my Masters thesis) I closed the presentation with a little update about what I’ve been up to in Cape Town (volunteering with Rotary, etc), and some comparisons between home and here. Of course I also thanked my wonderful host club for all of their hospitality and help in my first few weeks here. I was a bit nervous about how the presentation would be received, mostly because of some of the suggestions/advice/stories about other presentations etc, but everyone really seemed to enjoy my presentation. In fact, one of the members came up to me after to specifically tell me that it is one of the best scholar presentations that he has seen. Another member spoke to me after to invite me to help her with an upcoming conference in May for a Jewish women’s organization specifically about human trafficking. So exciting! Anyway, I’m glad I got the first one out of the way and had some positive encouragement about it. One down, 14 to go!