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ONLINE MAGAZINE
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10-06-2008
LOS ANGELES — This week, about 20,000 men and women from 145 countries will convene in Los Angeles for Rotary’s annual convention, often described as a “mini-United Nations” because of the organization’s international, cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity. Rotary members are business, professional, and community leaders from all walks of life who are united in a common goal of promoting world peace through humanitarian and educational service. During the June 15-18 convention at the Los Angeles Convention Center, they will exchange ideas, share success stories, and pursue solutions to some of the most pressing social and economic problems of the day. “We’re certain our convention in Los Angeles will be a resounding success,” says Rotary International President Wilfrid J. Wilkinson, of Trenton, Ont., Canada. “Every convention provides Rotary members the opportunity to look back on the successes of the past year and ahead toward the next year of helping communities around the world through volunteer service.” Founded in Chicago, Ill., U.S.A., in 1905, Rotary International today is a worldwide organization of 1.2 million men and women who belong to nearly 33,000 Rotary clubs in over 200 countries and geographicalareas. Committed to the motto of Service Above Self, Rotary clubs initiate humanitarian and educational projects, both locally and internationally, that aim to reduce poverty, advance literacy, eliminate hunger and thirst, prevent disease, and encourage high ethical standards in all vocations. The Los Angeles convention emphasizes Rotary’s commitment to literacy through Rotary’s Wide World of Books project organized by Southern California Rotary members, who have asked every registrant to bring along a children’s book representing his or her homeland. All books collected will be distributed to schools throughout the region, and an official from the Guinness World Records will be on hand to certify the book drive as the largest ever completed over a seven-day period.Rotary’s top humanitarian goal is the eradication of polio, and its success against this crippling disease also features prominently at the annual convention, which will include presentations by the top leaders of Rotary’s spearheading partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative: the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF.To learn more about Rotary, visitwww.rotary.org. |
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23-05-2008
Four hundred ShelterBox containers will reach China’s Sichuan Province this weekend to help alleviate the acute housing shortage after a 12 May earthquake there left 50,000 people dead and more than five million homeless. Another 400 containers are en route to the area.
Each container provides a tent, stove, water purification kit, blankets, tools, and other necessities to help a family of 10 survive for six months. ShelterBox is a UK-based disaster relief organization supported by Rotary clubs around the world.
At the request of the Chinese government, ShelterBox will also provide an additional 1,700 tents. Chinese officials have made urgent appeals to the international community for tents. News agencies are reporting that refugees flocking to the cities are sleeping in any spot they can find, many in sports stadiums and in makeshift tents.
Three ShelterBox response team members are in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, to help distribute the aid. "The enormity of it is far bigger than anything I have seen before," Tom Lay, ShelterBox team member, told BBC News.
LifeBox, a charitable project of the Rotary Club of Denton and Audenshaw in Manchester, England, is also contributing to disaster relief in Sichuan. One hundred LifeBox containers, which include tools, clothes, blankets, and baby items as well as a water purification tool called LifeStraw, have been sent to the province, along with 1,200 additional LifeStraws.
At the receiving end, Rotary clubs in China are helping pave the way for organizations like ShelterBox and LifeBox to enter the disaster area, securing permits for the boxes.
The Rotary Club of Beijing, located more than 900 miles away from the disaster area, is discussing earthquake relief projects. They plan to purchase US$4,000 of baby formula to distribute in the affected area. They are also fundraising. Beijing club members contributed more than $1,000 to earthquake relief at their meeting the day after the earthquake hit. Club president Mike Ma also said some funds from an annual charity ball next week, which will be attended by RI President-elect Dong Kurn Lee, will be redirected for earthquake relief.
"There are already discussions about an after-earthquake mental health consultation project working with China Red Cross and disaster area reconstruction projects," said Ma. "We are also studying the more long-term, significant reconstruction project possibilities to take on."
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22-05-2008
Two Chicago-area health care providers joined the Rotary Club of Elgin, Illinois, USA, in helping to meet Rotary’s US$100 Million Challenge. The Elgin club raised $40,000, and Provena Saint Joseph Hospital and Sherman Health each contributed $5,000. Elgin club president Michael McKay presented a check for $50,000 to RI President Wilfrid Wilkinson at the club’s 10 March meeting.
“While Provena Saint Joseph Hospital is deeply committed to the communities we are privileged to serve as a faith-based, mission-driven health care organization, our commitment to provide healing and hope transcends far beyond the Elgin area,” said Bill Brown,president and CEO of Provena Health’s northern Illinois region. “It is an honor to partner with highly regarded organizations like Rotary International and Sherman Health on such a worthy cause.”
“Rotary International’s polio eradication effort has been one of the great success stories in world health,” said Rick Floyd, president of Sherman Health, a network of suburban Chicago medical facilities. “We are pleased to join with Provena Saint Joseph Hospital in contributing to complete victory over polio.”
Earlier this year, McKay approached Brown and Floyd with the objective of creating a partnership to help support Rotary’s challenge. RI is matching the joint contribution at 50 cents on the dollar through PolioPlus Partners for a total of $75,000.
“The Elgin partnership that has formed to assist this global objective is a true testimony of the concern and compassion of both Provena Saint Joseph Hospital and Sherman Health for the health of individuals worldwide,” McKay said.
Wilkinson thanked the Elgin club and the health care providers for their generous support, and he vowed that Rotary is committed to the fight against polio, adding, “I think the end is getting very close.”
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20-05-2008
It’s a typical scene at a Rotary club-supported adult education center in Greenville, South Carolina, USA: In one classroom, John Tripoli, of the Rotary Club of Greenville, helps a woman with reading lessons. Across the hall in the computer lab, volunteer instructor Danielle Jeanty, of the Rotaract Club of Greenville Technical College, shows students computer mouse techniques and explains technical terms. In another part of the center, a teacher helps a small group add and subtract fractions.
Six Rotary clubs helped raise more than $260,000 to convert a locker room beside a closed swimming pool at a YWCA into usable space for the center. Rotarians also secured donations and in-kind gifts to furnish the facility and the computer lab and to buy software for the center’s English-as-a-second-language program. Now Rotarians are serving as adult literacy tutors in one-on-one or small-group sessions. And under the direction of the Greenville Literacy Association, Rotarians voluntarily staff the center.
The approximately 1,800-square-foot facility features three tutoring rooms, a computer lab, two small classrooms, an office, a book storage closet, and an area for child care, which the YWCA provides while parents attend classes. The center is close to several neighborhoods where a large percentage of the adult residents do not have a high school degree. Some students are immigrants seeking to improve their English.
The facility, which opened in November 2004, was a collaborative project of the Rotary clubs of Greenville, Greenville-East, Greenville Evening, The Foothills (North Greenville County), Pleasantburg (Greenville), and Simpsonville. Hundreds of individual, corporate, and foundation donors contributed to the project, which also received District Simplified Grants.
The center was a centennial community project commemorating Rotary’s 100th anniversary, according to Terry Weaver, 2003-04 president of the Greenville club.
“We set out to do a landmark project – the largest in our club’s history – and included five other clubs, a total of 550 Rotarians, in the effort,” Weaver says. “Our expert partners, the YWCA and Greenville Literacy, have done a remarkable job of staffing, training, managing, and also recruiting students to the center. All in all, we believe this is exactly what centennial projects were supposed to do: make a substantial and long-lasting contribution to our community.”
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15-05-2008
Rotarians heading to the 2008 RI Convention in Los Angeles next month are urged to bring one or several books in the language of their choice for Rotary’s Wide World of Books, a commemorative project of the LA2008 Convention Host Organization aimed at boosting literacy among local schoolchildren. Those who want to be a part of this global literacy initiative but aren’t able to attend the convention, can still help by making a virtual donation.
Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, has partnered with Rotary’s Wide World of Books and Reading by 9 to provide great books at low cost to Rotary clubs. Scholastic will ship the books free of charge to Los Angeles. Books must be ordered before 1 June to be included in the project.
Learn how to order.
“Literacy is crucial in determining a person’s overall academic, professional, and personal success,” says Ingo Werk, chair of the initiative and past governor of District 5280.
Werk hopes the initiative will set a Guinness World Record for the largest international book drive. A “mountain” of donated books will be on display in the atrium of the Los Angeles Convention Center. This achievement will be certified at the convention, says Werk.
Since 2000, a number of Southern California clubs have participated in Reading by 9, a multiyear campaign established by the Los Angeles Times that helps students in kindergarten through third grade read at grade level by the age of nine.
After the convention, the books will be distributed to schoolchildren living in the geographic area of the seven hosting Rotary districts, which cover parts of Southern California and Southern Nevada. |
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