About Us

Sue’s first connection with Rotary was in 2000 when she was contracted by Rotary International to work in South Africa on the Polio Eradication Private Sector Campaign working with Rotary leadership, government and corporations in South Africa. She was invited to join the Rotary Club of Johannesburg in 2002. Over the years, she worked on various campaigns in a project management capacity, including RI President Jonathan Majiyagbe’s Presidential Conference. It was at this conference that Sue met Marion Bunch, Founder and CEO of RFHA, who was a guest speaker at the event. Later in 2005 Marion asked Sue to be Program Director for ANCHOR (African Network for Children Orphaned and at Risk), a 5-year program aimed at supporting orphaned children. Then RFHA successfully piloted the Rotary Family Health Days in Uganda in 2011, and the program required implementation in the major country of South Africa to achieve proof of concept. Sue was contracted by Marion and the RFHA board in 2013 to lead this initiative on the ground. Although the framework for partnerships between the four Rotary districts, the CDC, USAID, the Ministry of Health and The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation (TCCAF) were in place on paper, Sue’s role was to build an organization to implement and execute this massive country-wide program. The organization would include 225 Rotary Clubs, and how they would interact with the Ministry of Health at the National, Regional and District levels. How did they work with the Coca-Cola executives, the major media houses, and particularly the NGOs and CBOs funded by the Centers for Disease Control and USAID. The program ran for three days at 140 sites across the country. TCCAF was the primary sponsor and granted $1.2 Million USD over a 4-year period. The program was a huge success, and this made it possible for RFHA to scale the program to other African nations. Both Rotary International and the CDC produced documentaries of the program. Rotary’s documentary won the prestigious Silver Telly Award for Best Documentary in 2014. Sue was asked to join the RFHA Board in 2015 and later stepped up to the CEO role in 2019 after Marion retired. It was a difficult time right away because of the COVID pandemic, but Sue’s tenacity and ability to build relationships paid off, culminating in two successful grants amounting to $3.7 Million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This integrated the Polio initiative into the other health services and escalated the program to another seven countries. To date the program has served 3.5 million beneficiaries in 16 countries. Sue has been awarded the Paul Harris Fellow four times, RFHA’s Jerry’s HERO award and was recently awarded the prestigious Service Above Self award by Rotary International. Outside of Rotary, Sue has served as Trustee of St. Andrew’s School for Girls, Director of School Aid South Africa, and Trustee of the President’s Award for Youth Empowerment (the Duke of Edinburgh Award) in South Africa. She lives in Cape Town, South Africa with her husband Trevor.

Valarie Wafer joined Rotary in 2005 in order to fuel her passion for making an impact that matters. Valarie was District Governor of RI district 7070 covering the Greater Toronto Area in 2013/14. Now residing in Burlington, Ontario, her home club is Burlington Lakeshore in D7080. Valarie has continued to serve Rotary in a number of international roles. She is an International Trainer, a member of the Host Organizing Convention Committee Toronto 2018, representative of the Rotary International President, and is an elected member of the Rotary International Board for 2020-2022. During Valarie’s tenure as a Rotarian she has participated and led many initiatives including a mission to Kosovo with Gift of Life International. She has also served as the Vocational Training Team leader to Australia in 2010 focusing on youth mental health, a National Immunization Day in India in 2012, and has travelled to Kenya and Tanzania to audit long-term Rotary Foundation grant activity. In her non-Rotary life, Valarie had a 27-year career as a restaurant owner in Toronto. The brand, Tim Hortons, is the most recognized and iconic franchise in Canada. The Wafer’s operation was best known for its inclusive hiring practices and accessibility, especially in the area of employment. Valarie, and her husband of 34 years, Mark are Paul Harris Fellows, Bequest Society members and Major Donors to The Rotary Foundation.

Emile is a qualified CA(SA) whose expertise lies in business architecture, analysis, issue resolution, risk mitigation, and solution development and implementation, while utilizing his financial qualifications and experience (financial and general management). He is a senior Financial Business Architect on a major intermediary remuneration renewal project and leads the design and development of the financial components while ensuring the financial integrity of the overall solution.

Elyjoy holds a Law degree and a Masters in Youth and Community development from the U.K. She has worked in various civil society institutes in the UK including Yorkshire and Humberside Youth Offending agency. She transitioned to working in the youth development sector with a focus on developing programs that address the youth unemployment rate in South Africa. She has developed and implemented programs for the NYDA, Harambee, Ever Africa, Ready to work (ABSA) as well as Vulindela eJozi with The Social Collective. Elyjoy has worked with Rotary Family Health Days since 2018 and has been instrumental in its monitoring and evaluation . This has grown into an area of focus and interest which has led her to work on frameworks that measure and showcase impact of social projects for both NGOs and Corporates.