Fiona Bruce MP speaks at Sandbach Rotary
The guest speaker at this week’s Sandbach Rotary Club meeting was Fiona Bruce MP. Fiona spoke of her work on the International Development Select Committee, whose role is to scrutinise the use of the Government’s aid budget. She spoke with particular reference to her recent trip to Ethiopia with other members of the Select Committee and showed a number of slides of the visit.
Whilst speaking Fiona highlighted the fact that international aid helps recipient developing countries strengthen their own economies with the ultimate aim of moving out of aid dependency and highlighted therefore the projects being supported through aid in Ethiopia to help local communities there strengthen their economies. Projects she described visiting included support for a group of small sales cooking oil producers to become a co-operative, help for hillside small holders in a remote region of Ethiopia to develop bee-keeping and honey production businesses and projects promoted in conjunction with the charity Farm Aid to help women set up micro businesses such as chicken rearing.
President of The Rotary Club of Sandbach Stuart Blackwell said "From the reaction of my members I can say that it was a truly very enjoyable event and much appreciated. We enjoyed Fiona's company greatly, and learnt a lot about the value of overseas aid".
