By Rotary International

By Richard J. Fox, Rotary Club of Charlotte-Shelburne, Vermont, USA

Since joining Rotary in 2011, I have been impressed by its commitment to eradicating polio from the world through its End Polio Now campaign. That said, polio never resonated with me as a significant cause.

I was generally aware of polio’s impact throughout history: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the March of Dimes, iron lungs, and the polio panic here in the United States. But it wasn’t personal to me; it was something of the previous generation, abstract, to which I had no emotional investment.

And then my mom went and showed me how wrong I was.

A couple of weeks ago she handed me a small piece of cardboard and said “Since you’re in Rotary and its always talking about polio, I thought you might want this.” The cardboard was my mother’s “Polio Pioneer” card, marking her as one of hundreds of thousands of children throughout the United States who, in the summer of 1954, participated in the largest clinical trial ever conducted.

For most of us born after 1954, I suspect the idea of hundreds of thousands of parents across the nation volunteering their children to test an unproven vaccine for polio is a …read more

Source:: Rotary International Blog

By Rotary International

“We humans are creatures of habit, and it is just as easy to acquire the habit of speaking kindly as it is to acquire the habit of speaking unkindly”

— Paul Harris, 1935

When he spoke at the 1935 Rotary Convention in Mexico City, Paul Harris had only recently returned from a journey though Asia and the Pacific. He reflected on the opportunities for friendship he encountered on his trip and reminded members of their duty to act as ambassadors of goodwill. Read the full speech.

Editor’s note: 19 April marks the anniversary of Paul Harris’ birth. …read more

Source:: Rotary International Blog

By Rotary International

By Chelsea Mertz, communications specialist, Rotary Service Connections

Does your club manage members and officer updates online? Did your district buy a club management system for the clubs in your district, such as DACdb, but your club uses a different vendor, like ClubRunner?

At Rotary International, we now provide clubs with the ability to use multiple vendors. What this means is that if your club is using a different system from your district leadership, you can select the district’s vendor as a secondary vendor. Your vendor would remain the preferred, primary vendor which would be able to view and update club data. The secondary and any additional vendors would have view-only access to club data.

As a club, you are the owner of your club membership data. But with the multi-vendor abilities you can determine who handles your data. Your district will still be able to “view” your club’s membership, but they will not be able to update your information.

So how do you get started? Choose a licensed vendor and establish an account through the vendor’s website. (Your club will be subject to the vendor’s terms and policies.) Once you have an account, you can have a club officer integrate it with …read more

Source:: Rotary International Blog

By Rotary International

Masao Mizuno meets with a Rotary Peace Fellow.

By Masao Mizuno, Rotary Club of Ageo West, Japan

Hosting a Peace Fellow substantially changed my life in Rotary. Since joining Rotary, I have been running a company that imports industrial tools, mostly from Israel and Europe, so I am familiar with talking to people from other countries.

My initial purpose for joining Rotary was to make local friends and expand my network. However, I began to think about peace more seriously after running a joint venture with an Israeli company. After seven years in my club, I took a position on our club’s Rotary Foundation committee, and heard about the Rotary Peace Fellowship program. Getting involved seemed like the right thing to do.

I met many Peace Fellows in May of 2015 as part of a cross-cultural trip I joined. The students were so similar to the people I work with internationally, so it took only a few seconds to make friends with them. Most of the Peace Fellows are well experienced in both studying and travelling. When I talk to them, I feel relaxed and encouraged. Additionally, I have had many chances to meet with family members and friends of Peace Fellows as a …read more

Source:: Rotary International Blog

By Rotary International

Bethany Lerch, right, takes notes during a mine awareness conference for women in Kabul.

By Bethany Lerch, former Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, 2010-2011

I knew little about Rotary eight years ago when my former high school counselor encouraged me to apply for an Ambassadorial Scholarship. He was retired, but still active in Rotary, and knew a master’s was my next step. At the time, I had just graduated from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and knew I needed to go to graduate school. But where and how?

Through a Google search, I learned Rotary was an international service organization. Intrigued, I applied for the scholarship and made it to the district interview, where I was asked what I wanted to do, really do. The question took me by surprise. Unsure how to answer, I stuttered that I hoped to change the world someday. I remember looking at the floor thinking, how far-fetched.

Less than a week later, I received the call that I had been selected. What if, I wondered, my acceptance had to do with wanting to “change the world” someday?

The University of Saint Andrews was my graduate school home. I pursued Terrorism Studies in hopes of better understanding the phenomenon that was killing …read more

Source:: Rotary International Blog

By Rotary International

Peace Fellow Lindsey Doyle (far right, first row) and other prize winners with Vice-chancellor Eva Åkesson

By Magnus Elfwendahl, Rotary Club of Uppsala Carolina, Sweden

In January, I had the honor of watching as Rotary Peace Fellow Lindsey Doyle from the United States received Uppsala University’s foremost award to teachers and students supporting human rights. Doyle was awarded the Martin H:son Holmdahl prize at Uppsala’s doctoral conferment ceremony.

The prize committee noted Doyle’s unusual and inspiring way of bridging academic excellence and personal experience for human rights and peace building. It made the Rotary members in the audience proud to experience how the outstanding quality and academic performance of our Peace Fellows is attracting growing attention and esteem.

I am full of admiration for the effort our peace fellows put into their work, preparing themselves for their future pursuit for peace and reconciliation.

Learn more about Rotary’s peace centers

Eflwendahl is host area coordinator at the Rotary Peace Center in Uppsala

…read more

Source:: Rotary International Blog

By Rotary International

Talking to villagers in western Ghana.

By Nana Konduah Dickye, Rotary Club of Sekondi-Takoradi, Ghana

On 12 November, I led a three-member team to visit seven communities my Rotary club is responsible for as part of the multi-year Rotary-USAID International H2O Collaboration in Ghana. The aim of the collaboration is to provide water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure and advocacy to deprived communities.

The total journey to these seven communities – Akwaso, Samfifire, Amoada, Kyeikrom, Nkakaa, Bonuama and Anyabream – began at Takoradi and covered a distance of 800 kilometers. It is one thing to hear about communities without basic water supply and sanitation needs. Actually having been to these communities and experiencing the kind of hardships they go through is quite another.

In each community that we went, we first met with community elders to inform them of our mission, as is customary in Ghana. On the average, each community has a population of about 1,500, and 80 percent of the working population are engaged in subsistence farming.The remaining 20 percent are made up of table top food staff sellers and various handicraft artisans. Only Akwaso, which is a mining town, had access to a municipal water supply and a complement of …read more

Source:: Rotary International Blog

By Rotary International

Jasmine Segall, right, and her best friend in Monterrey, who entertains children as a clown.

By Jasmine Segall, former Rotary global grant scholar

I have heard a variety of interesting stories about why the rural Costa Rican town I live in as a Peace Corps volunteer is called Monterrey. My favorite is the literal translation: “King of the Grass,” explained by a wizened elderly gentleman as the place his family settled to farm cattle because of its nutritious vegetation. On a good day, I can get a clear view of the Arenal Volcano and see the lush farmland that stretches endlessly below. The view is breathtaking. It truly is a green kingdom.

My path to becoming a “loyal subject” of Monterrey was influenced by a lifelong involvement in community service. I grew up participating in the Girl Scouts, 4-H, and Key Club. As an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, I volunteered at Kiva – a nonprofit that makes small loans to empower entrepreneurs around the world.

One of the highlights of my undergraduate experience was starting a student group that partnered with Kiva to offer no-interest microloans to low-income entrepreneurs in Oakland, California, USA. Our first borrower used the profits generated from …read more

Source:: Rotary International Blog