What makes one pack up, board a plane, and travel 13,000 miles in order to go from a beautiful island to a wild jungle full of snakes, field mines and warring freedom fighters? Sometimes the longing for adventure, sometimes a
What makes one pack up, board a plane, and travel 13,000 miles in order to go from a beautiful island to a wild jungle full of snakes, field mines and warring freedom fighters? Sometimes the longing for adventure, sometimes a call for help, sometimes the curiosity, sometimes just being a Rotarian, and sometimes the frustration.
Former International Director of the Rotary Club of Po‘ipu Beach, Janos Samu, has traveled to 61 countries, so far. A few years ago he was making a presentation to his home club about the international contacts he has developed around the globe, which he illustrated using a large, hanging world map. Trying to show the distance between Kaua‘i and faraway Turkmenistan in Central Asia, he could not find Kaua‘i on the world map.
This inspired Samu, who runs an international language translation business in Kalaheo, to reach out to peoples around the world to make Kaua‘i more known internationally.
One step was using the International Youth Exchange program of Rotary International to bring to Kaua‘i Mayya Galkanova, a 17 year old exchange student from Turkmenistan. Galkanova is the first such student in Rotary history from a country that is yet to have a Rotary program established within its borders. Another step was enrolling Eniko Krizsovenszky, a 17 year old from Hungary, in the Rotary program.
Mayya attended Kaua‘i Community College, and Krizsovenszky Waimea High School.
Another step was giving gifts to faraway places. For that Samu collected thousands of photo magazines including copies of National Geographic, Islands, Hawaii and National Geographic Traveler. He included a map of Kaua‘i in each shipment. The magazines were sent to schools in 27 countries, at locales ranging from Siberia to Uganda, and from Uruguay to isolated Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific. Samu said the idea behind this project was to spread knowledge in areas where they have not seen a magazine yet and where they thought that nobody cared about them.
Samu also worked on humanitarian aid projects. Refugees arriving in Macedonia from war-torn Kosovo were helped; a collection of used clothing was sent to refugees in the RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan) camps in Pakistan; and clothing and toys were shipped to Shan refugees in Northern Thailand.
Island School student assisted Samu in collecting the items sent to Thailand. The school’s Interact Club also collected and packed about 1000 books which were sent to Uganda and Zambia in Africa, Bhutan in the Himalayas, and to the islands of Micronesia. Another 1000 volumes went to a bookless library in Ghana.
Three Kaua‘i students benefited from Samu’s vision and sent overseas as Rotary exchange students. The trio were Tiana Kamen, from Po‘ipu, who went to Mexico; Ivory McClintock from Anahola, who spent a year in Ecuador; and Ashley Johnson, from Wailua, who went to Italy and studied a year in Sardinia.
Last year Samu organized a matching grant project for his club and the Rotary clubs of Asmara, the capital city of Eritrea in Africa, and the Rotary Club of Ede in Holland. This effort sent $20,000 in food to help single mothers and children in famine ridden areas of Eritrea.
This year Samu took action in helping refugees fleeing political oppression in Myanmar, the nation formerly known as Burma. He made three trips to Northern Thailand to the Loi Lum Shan Refugee Camp and to organize help for the refugees, in particular providing electricity for an evening school to teach the illiterate deep in the jungle near the dangerous Myanmar border. Getting to the camp required he travel down a narrow and endlessly winding road
While in Thailand Samu created a sister club agreement with the Naresuan Rotary Club in Thailand, visited a Hungarian Rotary exchange student, and recruited Kim Charoensawan, from the ancient Thai capital of Sukhothai, to study at Kaua‘i High School as one of the club’s exchange students this year.
He also flew to the Kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas to recruit another exchange student, Dechen Pelden, and to assess the climate for Rotary expansion into this mountainous country. Pelden comes from a poor family with nine children, the daughter of a baker. Rotarians from six countries joined together to provide her funding. She is now a senior at Waimea High School.
Samu also arranged for the creation of an English section in the National Library of Bhutan during his visit, enlisting the help of Koloa librarian David Thorpe and the Friends of the Koloa Library who donated a selection of books for the library, with the Rotary Club of Po‘ipu paying for the shipping.
Janos Samu can be reached at Janoss@aol.com.
