** ARC members hear about the efforts of Rotary to encourage peace making around the world at all levels. **
No one can say we live in a peaceful world, but Jim Palmquist of the Emmaus Rotary Club told a gathering of Allentown Rotarians at their March 23rd meeting the world is actually more peaceful than it was and that Rotary is doing its bit to help.
Jim serves as club secretary for the Emmaus Rotary. He has had a diverse career working in computer systems with RCA, Naval Aviation, sales with Polaroid, logistics with Air Products and non-profit management with the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley. He is also a U.S. Navy veteran, and possesses a commercial pilot’s license and instrument ratings in fixed wing aircraft and helicopters. Jim began by noting that a lot of people did not believe that Rotary could end polio around the world. Yet 99.98 percent of the planet is today polio free thanks to the work Rotary has done.
With this goal achieved Jim believes that Rotary could do the same for world peace. He notes the important role Rotary plays as an international organization.
“We have members that have a presence on national and local levels,” he explains. Palmquist also notes
that Rotary has 1,000 Peace scholars around the world. “They are peacefully building normal relations based on the reconciliation of differences and cooperative relationships.”
Insightfully, Palmquist noted that a situation where there are winners and losers does not always lead to peace. “If there is a winner that means there is a loser out there in the weeds that wants to get revenge, so the conflict does not end,” he says.
Do you know that we are living in one of the most peaceful times in human history? This short video from Jim's talk highlights this fact and more! "Peace Is" Video
