E-Club of SOWNY News
Posted by Gordon Crann
INDUCTING E-MEMBERS
Over the last 6 months, the E-Club of SOWNY has increased its membership by 50% by quickly becoming the lead E-Club in the world for microfinance and social enterprise.
In January, the Rotary E-Club of Southern Ontario – Western New York (SOWNY) welcomed two new members.
Antoinette Bain is a former teacher with the Peel District School Board, and a long-time volunteer with the Toronto International Microfinance Summit (TIMS).
Howard Weinstein is the Founder of the internationally award winning social enterprise Solar Ear, which designs and manufactures affordable hearing aids with solar rechargeable batteries while training, hiring and employing young people who are deaf. Originally, Solar Ear’s hearing aids were manufactured in Botswana, then later also manufactured in Brazil and China, while being exported around the world.
A Brazil Ashoka Fellow living in Sao Paolo, Howard was honoured by being named the global 2011 Social Entrepreneur of the Year.
Although Howard Weinstein was a speaker at two breakout sessions during the 2015 Sao Paolo RI Convention, as well as a panelist for the social entrepreneur breakout session at the pre-convention 2015 Rotary World Peace Symposium, he had never become a Rotarian until he joined the E-Club of SOWNY on January 19th.
Today, Howard is working with Rotary Clubs and Rotarians in Bangladesh, Canada, Egypt, Pakistan and the United States to develop Solar Ear affiliates to better serve the deaf markets in North America, Middle East-North Africa, Pakistan and Bangladesh.