New Rotary president supporting community during lockdown

By Katie Johnson

As the newly elected president of the Rotary Club of Southbank, Jasmin Dhillon is working hard to support the Southbank community during lockdown.

Under her leadership, the club has recently launched a number of new projects to celebrate Rotary’s 100th year in Australia and New Zealand.

One such project is the G’day Network launched in June—a mental health service designed to combat the loneliness brought about by isolation.

“As part of the G’day Network you can join a meeting online and have a safe space to chat and engage. And in the future, we plan to be out and about, at markets, so people can feel free to drop by and chat to us,” Ms Dhillon said.

To assist people who are trying to leave a difficult home situation during lockdown, the Rotary club of Southbank has also recently partnered with the Rotary Club of Prahran to form the Inner Melbourne Emergency Relief Network.

Ms Dhillon said the new Network would work to provide donated furniture and other household goods to those in need.

“It’s essentially a crisis emergency network for the inner city where people can donate furniture they no longer want and we can provide it to people who are setting up a new home,” she said.

Inside the club itself, Ms Dhillon and her team had also been hard at work to create a new satellite club for millennials.

“We’ve created a more flexible satellite club which allows millennials to meet and work on projects that interest them without having the buy-in of the original club,” she said.

In October, Rotary will also be launching a satellite club for executives, which will be targeted at business leaders in the Southbank community.

“We’ll also have the executive club for people with a busy lifestyle who want to help out with fundraising but don’t have the time to commit to weekly meetings. We hope it will help us be more responsive, adaptive and innovative when dealing with community issues,” she said.

In terms of fundraising, the Rotary Club has a book sale fundraiser planned which will be going ahead digitally in August.

“We’re planning to launch that in the next couple of weeks and most things will go for a couple of dollars—even the good books,” Ms Dhillon said.

“We want to fundraise, gold donation style, to put towards our projects such as eradicating polio and making and donating face masks.”

The money will also be used to continue supporting Southbank-based crisis centre Steps, along with Upbeat Arts which provides arts programs to marginalised communities.

“There’s been an increase in children fleeing home during COVID-19 which is unfortunately related to domestic violence, so Steps is seeing a need for more support and fundraising,” Ms Dhillon said.

“Upbeat Arts also provides support to people who are having mental health issues or may have lost their jobs so we want to support that community connection.”

Ms Dhillon was elected as the president on July 7 after two years as a member—the youngest woman to ever run the club.

“It’s still a bit unique for a young woman of a culturally diverse background to be in leadership role in my district so we’re hoping to see that change,” she said.

In Jasmin’s personal life she practices both criminal and commercial law, but she said the Rotary Club provided a unique sense of connection and altruism—which was particularly important during current times.

“I love the vibe of the club, the people, and it was great being able to give back to the community and be around like-minded people,” she said.

“It becomes like a second family.” •