Sustainable Cambodia/Honolulu Shriners Hospital
Mike Orbin is a member of the Bethlehem Morning Star Rotary Club, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, located in eastern Pennsylvania. He has been a Rotarian since September 2018, initially a member with the Allentown Rotary Club.
When a member of the Allentown Club he advocated for the Club's involvement in international projects and was instrumental in Allentown Rotary Club investing in the repair of a Pediatric Rigid Bronchoscope for a Children's Hospital in Morelia, Mexico in coordination with the Camelinas Rotary Club. He advocated to his Club to provide monies to the Rotary Club of Mfuwe, Zambia, during COVID, to make and distribute facemasks in their community, including more than 20 schools. For the last four years he has been an advocate and supporter of investing in sustainable educational, safe water, health care, food security, and income-generating programs in rural Cambodia with the Rotary Club of Pursat and Sustainable Cambodia, which has resulted this year in the Rotary District 7430’s involvement as a major partner of the Global Grant "Family Self-Reliance Through Village Empowerment" in year 2023-2024. This grant will benefit over 420 families and more than 2,500 people in 3 rural Cambodian villages. He will continue his efforts in the Bethlehem Club.
In February 2023, his first return to Cambodia after COVID, he met for the first time one of the students he was sponsoring for educational enrichment classes. She had severe scoliosis and had never been to a doctor for her condition. After returning home he organized efforts to get medical treatments to correct her condition, successfully getting her admitted to Shriners Childrens Hospital in Honolulu, Hawaii, with the support of friends, and Rotarians, throughout the world. With the excellent medical treatment she received and gracious support and care of the staff from Shriners, she is now being released to go home. It is an amazing change. She looks like a totally new person. A major impediment has been removed from her life giving her an opportunity to live a much healthier, successful, and less restrictive life. Mike has now returned to escort her and her sister home.