ROTARY AND......

1- ROTARY AND WATER

Rotary recognizes the importance of safe and clean water and has made it one of its highest priorities. Through its network of 33,000 service clubs, Rotary encourages its clubs and districts to support efforts which help people to provide themselves with safe water reasonably close to their homes using simple, sustainable technology. This policy is reflected in Rotary projects of all sizes in all parts of the world.

Rotary partners with other nongovernmental organizations, corporations and agencies to improve water conditions throughout the developing world. Additionally, Rotary club members initiate thousands of projects each year to supply, conserve, and purify water – all with the goal of providing clean and safe drinking water to communities in need.

2- ROTARY AND POLIO

Polio

Poliomyelitis (polio) is a crippling and potentially fatal disease that still threatens children in parts of Africa and Asia .  The poliovirus invades the nervous system, and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours.  It can strike at any age, but mainly affects children under five years of age. 

PolioPlus

In 1985, Rotary International created PolioPlus – a program to immunize all the world’s children against polio.   To date, Rotary has contributed more than US$2 billion and countless volunteer hours to the protection of more than two billion children in 122 countries. Rotary has raised an additional US$200 million toward a US$355 million challenge grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. These efforts are providing much needed operational support, medical personnel, laboratory equipment and educational materials for health workers and parents. In addition, Rotary has played a major role in decisions by donor governments to contribute over $8 billion to the effort.  

Polio Today

Today, endemic wild poliovirus has been eliminated from all but three countries in the world (Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan), and less than 750 cases were reported worldwide by January 2012 [India was declared Polio Free on January 2012].  Though great progress has been made, challenges remain. Overall, the quality of immunization campaigns must be improved, and more funding is critically needed.  In response, governments, donors and international agencies have endorsed a plan with clear milestones to tackle these and other challenges to a polio-free world.

Global Polio Eradication Initiative

With its community-based network worldwide, Rotary is the volunteer arm and top private sector contributor to a global partnership dedicated to eradicating polio.  Since its launch in 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative - spearheaded by the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF - has reduced the incidence of polio by more than 99 percent.  At the time, more than 125 countries were polio-endemic, and more than 350,000 children were paralysed by the disease each year.

Rotarians in Action  

Besides raising funds, over one million men and women of Rotary have donated their time and personal resources to help immunize nearly two billion children during mass immunization campaigns throughout the world.  Rotarians prepare and distribute different types of mass communication tools to get the message those isolated by conflict, geography or poverty. Rotary members also recruit fellow volunteers, assist with transporting the vaccine, administer the vaccine to children and provide other logistical support.

Lasting Legacy

The savings of polio eradication are estimated at $40-50 billion dollars - funds that could be used to address other public health priorities.  The savings in human suffering will be immeasurable.

3- ROTARY AND LITERACY

In 1985, Rotary declared basic literacy to be a pre-condition to the development of peace. Through this organizational emphasis, more than half the world’s 33,000 Rotary clubs address the full range of literacy and mathematical challenges for primary, vocational, and adult learners as well as teacher training. Many Rotary club members promote what is termed "lighthouse" literacy projects – those that can be replicated easily, thereby increasing the scope of their impact.

Lighthouse literacy projects have been created for formal schooling, older children who are not in school, functionally illiterate adults (particularly women), special groups, and teacher’s training. The purpose of these projects is to inspire, guide and support national authorities toward alleviating mass illiteracy in developing countries. In Thailand, for example, the “lighthouse” literacy effort has been so successful that the government adopted it as a national program. Similar literacy initiatives have been sponsored by Rotary clubs in Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, and South Africa.

4- ROTARY AND PEACE

Rotary is committed to building peace and international understanding through its network of 1.2 million community volunteers in more than 200 countries and geographical areas. Rotary club members initiate humanitarian projects both locally and internationally to address the underlying causes of conflict including illiteracy, disease, hunger, poverty, lack of clean water, and environmental concerns.

Rotary has partnered with eight leading universities around the globe to develop the Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution. Each year, Rotary awards up to 60 fellowships for a master’s degree and up to 50 fellowships for a professional development certificate through a program aimed at equipping the next generation of global and community leaders with skills needed to reduce the threat of war and violence in the world. The six Rotary Centers based at leading universities in six countries include: International Christian University, Japan; Upssalla University, Sweden; University of Bradford, United Kingdom; University of Queensland, Australia; Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C., and Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.

Rotary Centers’ alumni work in a range of areas, from grassroots and local non-governmental organizations to consulting firms, national governments, military, and police, to bilateral and international organizations.  Alumni are currently employed with, for example, the United Nations, World Bank, International Organization for Migration, and Organization of American States.