Rotary's popularity spread throughout the United States in the decade that followed; clubs
were chartered from San Francisco to New York. By 1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on
six continents, and the organization adopted the name Rotary International a year later.
As Rotary grew, its mission expanded beyond serving the professional and
social interests of club members. Rotarians began pooling their resources and contributing
their talents to help serve communities in need. The organization's dedication to this
ideal is best expressed in its principal motto: Service Above Self. Rotary also later
embraced a code of ethics, called The 4-Way Test, that has been translated into
hundreds of languages.
During and after World War II, Rotarians became increasingly involved in
promoting international understanding. In 1945, 49 Rotary members served in 29 delegations
to the United Nations Charter Conference. Rotary still actively participates in UN
conferences by sending observers to major meetings and promoting the United Nations in
Rotary publications. Rotary International's relationship with the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) dates back to a 1943 London
Rotary conference that promoted international cultural and educational exchanges. Attended
by ministers of education and observers from around the world, and chaired by a past
president of RI, the conference was an impetus to the establishment of UNESCO in 1946.
An endowment fund, set up by Rotarians in 1917 "for doing good in the
world," became a not-for-profit corporation known as The Rotary Foundation
in 1928. Upon the death of Paul Harris in 1947, an outpouring of Rotarian donations made
in his honor, totaling US$2 million, launched the Foundation's first program — graduate
fellowships, now called Ambassadorial Scholarships. Today, contributions to The
Rotary Foundation total more than US$80 million annually and support a wide range of
humanitarian grants and educational programs that enable Rotarians to bring hope and
promote international understanding throughout the world.
A polio-free world: end in sight for Rotary’s
battle to reach the last child
Rotary International and its 10,000 New Zealand members hopes to celebrate its centenary
in February 2005 with the news that polio will soon be eradicated worldwide as part of a
20 year Rotary campaign with the World Health Organisation, United Nations International
Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and government agencies.
During the two-decade project, Rotary has supported national and regional polio
eradication programmes by providing oral vaccine, social mobilisation and fundraising
totalling the equivalent of nearly $NZ1 billion.
The campaign is the largest non-military global enterprise in human history, involving
thousands of health workers, millions of volunteers and a $US3 billion price tag.
Rotary volunteers have often worked in difficult and dangerous conditions, hampered by
civil wars, cultural and political prejudice against immunisation, harsh climates, and
other hostile elements.
In the most highly co-ordinated example of the campaign, 152 million children were
immunised in one day as 100,000 Rotarians and their families joined government workers
across India in 2000 to administer precious drops of vaccine.
When the global campaign began, 350,000 children a year were being crippled by the disease
and 50,000 children died. Last year, fewer than 1000 cases of paralytic polio were
reported, as tens of millions more children were immunised.
New Zealand has been free of introduced polio since 1962, but while a single wild virus
exists, children everywhere remain at risk and that’s why it’s in everyone’s
interest to support its eradication. The New Zealand government has contributed $600,000
toward Rotary’s international efforts against polio.
Most epidemics are now confined to Nigeria (three-quarters of the new cases), Pakistan,
and India.
As it approached the dawn of the 21st century, Rotary worked to meet the
changing needs of society, expanding its service effort to address such pressing issues as
environmental degradation, illiteracy, world hunger, and children at risk. The
organization admitted women for the first time (worldwide) in 1989 and claims more than
145,000 women in its ranks today. Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, Rotary clubs were formed or re-established throughout
Central and Eastern Europe. Today, 1.2 million Rotarians belong to some 31,000 Rotary
clubs in 166 countries.
xx
Read more about Rotary and History here:
Rotary Newspaper
Clippings
|
