This is a face-to-face meeting at the RACV Club.

If you would like to visit our meeting, you are welcome to join us at the Theatrette, Chancery Level of the RACV Club. There is no charge for attending the meeting.

If you would like a more general discussion about attending a Rotary meeting, please contact the club secretary at rotaryclubcentralmelbourne@gmail.com

The meeting will commence at 7:40am and conclude no later than 8:30. Members and guests are invited to stay for coffee or breakfast in the RACV Club Bistro following the meeting.

Deborah Rhodes: Reframing Aid - A Strengths-based Approach for International Development

The practice of international development continues to change as more is understood about what works. A shift from a deficit or problem-solving approach to a strengths-based approach is a significant reframing for international development. A strengths-based approach aims to reveal assets, strengths or what is working within an individual, group, community or organisation, then uses these strengths as a way of achieving change and preferred futures. Deborah will outline the thinking, practical action and evidence-base required to inform a sector-wide transformation, including Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Aid case studies.

Deborah Rhodes is an international development practitioner, author, and trainer with 40 years of experience largely in Pacific and Asian countries.  Deborah started her career in the Australian Government’s international development agency, working on Pacific programs and taking a posting to Port Louis in Mauritius.  She then moved to Melbourne as manager of programs in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam with Australian Volunteers International.  In 1999 she joined International Development Support Services, the consulting arm of Oxfam Australia.

Since 2002, Deborah has worked independently, designing, supporting, and evaluating a wide range of programs, in WASH, education, health, law and governance, community development and other sectors.  She has focused on links between cultural values and how change happens, capacity strengthening, and disability inclusive development.  Deborah has also trained thousands of development workers in government and NGOs on development topics, and during COVID, wrote her fourth book, with Dr Keren Winterford and Chris Dureau, about use of a strengths-based approach in international development, which was published in 2023.