Her Royal Highness Princess
Chulabhorn
Ryan Hyland
Rotary International News
The Rotary International Convention was held in Bangkok May 6-9, bringing
more than 35,000 members from across the world to Thailand for its 103rd
annual celebration. The Rotary convention is often described as “mini United
Nations” because of its internationality and multiculturalism.
Tata Young performs the
National Anthem of Thailand at the opening plenary session during the RI
Convention, May 6, in Bangkok. Thailand hosted over 35,000 Rotarians from
across the world in what is sometimes described as a “mini United Nations”
because of its internationality and multiculturalism.
Her Royal Highness Princess Chulabhorn, representing His Majesty the King,
graciously presided over the opening ceremony. In her address she thanked
Rotarians for their good work around the world.
“Rotary International is well-known the world over as a public charitable
organisation distinguished for its public service to humanity and for its
tireless strive for public good. They include relief work for those who fall
victim to natural disasters, campaigning for improvement in quality of life,
as well as for the promotion of world peace.
“I’m truly impressed by the unity of all Rotarians in devoting themselves to
charity work in a spirit of selfless benevolence and dedication as befits
Rotary’s own motto, Service Above Self,” said Princess Chulabhorn. “It is
therefore a great pleasure to see members of Rotary International from all
parts of the world, including their families, gathered here at the
convention to reaffirm their faith and to remain steadfast in the ideals of
Rotary, firm in their resolve ‘to do good in the world’. I am confident that
your unwavering commitment and good intentions will reap due reward for our
common cause.”
Rotary International President
Kalyan Banerjee
In his opening remarks, Rotary International President
Kalyan Banerjee said Rotary is stronger today than it was at the beginning
of his presidential term. “I came into this year determined to make a
difference, to leave Rotary stronger at the end of my year. And those goals
were met,” said Banerjee. “But if there is one thing I have learned in this
incredible year, it is that the changes that I have seen, the lives that
have been touched haven’t been because of me. They have been because of
you.”
Banerjee praised the Rotary projects that he and his wife, Binota, saw
during their travels throughout the year, sharing how overwhelmed with pride
and joy he was for their great work.
Muhammad Yunus
This year, Banerjee visited projects from New York to the
newest Rotary country, South Sudan, where Rotarians from several countries
are working with the government to build a multimillion dollar hospital.
He also highlighted the recent project partnership agreement between RI and
ShelterBox, a grassroots Rotary club-sponsored disaster relief organization.
“We Rotarians pride ourselves on being the first to arrive when help is
needed - and the last to leave. By partnering with ShelterBox, we’ll be able
to do even more,” said Banerjee. “I hope this will be only the first of many
project partners, as we look to expand our reach with more volunteers, in
more places than ever before.”
Speakers urge Rotarians to fight global poverty
Poverty and hunger were the targets of the plenary sessions of the 2012 RI
Convention, as a variety of award-winning speakers encouraged Rotarians to
use their ingenuity to solve these global challenges.
Hugh Evans
Microcredit pioneer Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, commended
Rotarians for their work in developing microcredit loans for the poor. The
founder of Grameen Bank also encouraged Rotarians to pursue social business
enterprises that would work with microcredit-funded businesses not just to
produce revenue but also to return profits to the communities where they
operate.
As an example, Yunus highlighted a joint venture between Grameen Bank and
Danone, a European food company, to produce high-nutrition yogurt for
children in Bangladesh. The goal is to reduce malnutrition while creating
manufacturing and distribution jobs.
Gillian Sorensen
“In today’s world, we use money to make money, not solve
problems,” said Yunus. “If we use money creatively in a business framework,
we can solve any problem.”
Recently, Grameen Bank also joined forces with Adidas to produce shoes that
cost less than US$1 per pair. The affordable shoes help prevent infection by
foot parasites in poor communities.
Angelique Kidjo
“My dream is to one day take poverty out of our society
and put it in a museum that our grandchildren can visit to see what it was
like,” Yunus said.
Antipoverty crusader Hugh Evans, cofounder and CEO of the Global Poverty
Project, said Rotary can use its considerable influence to fight poverty.
“Like Rotary, we believe that mass mobilization of individuals can effect
real change in the world,” Evans said. “When we focus on the needs of
others, our own burdens become lighter. Our perspective sharpens.”
Jose
Ramos-Horta
“This idea, the same one that drives you as Rotarians, guides our work at
the Global Poverty Project,” he said.
UN connection
Gillian Sorensen, senior adviser and national advocate at the United Nations
Foundation, encouraged Rotarians to work with governments to solve global
problems including poverty, hunger, illiteracy, and lack of access to clean
drinking water and sanitation.
“What is clear is that problems like this are too great for governments
alone to resolve,” said Sorensen, who has served in many positions at the UN
including assistant secretary-general for external relations. “They need
partners of every kind, from private sector to civil organizations like
yours, who have the means to contribute and lead.”
Sorensen said Rotary, which has a 66-year relationship with the UN,
continues to be an active and influential presence at the organization’s
headquarters in New York. “You play a similar role with UNICEF, UNESCO, and
WHO,” she adds.
John
F. Germ
Angelique Kidjo, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and activist, said
the world has many health issues for which there are no solutions, but added
that “the most frustrating are the ones for which we have a solution and not
enough is being done.”
Kidjo, who was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2002, said Rotary’s
“This Close” campaign is the right message to help eradicate polio for good.
“What I love about [the campaign] is that a simple goal is set,” she said.
“We know eradication is possible. With your goodwill and energy, this goal
is achievable.”
The four-day event, which drew to a close Wednesday, May 9, attracted more
than 35,000 attendees from 181 countries and geographical areas and included
a celebration of two major milestones in the global polio eradication
effort.
Rotarians celebrate two major milestones in the
organization’s decades-long fight to rid the world of polio
During the third plenary session Rotarians were congratulated for meeting
and exceeding Rotary’s US$200 Million Challenge, Rotary’s response to $355
million in matching grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for
polio eradication efforts. Attendees also celebrated India’s removal from
the polio-endemic list in February, which leaves only three countries where
transmission of the virus has never been stopped.
Bruce
Aylward
But speakers reminded the festive assembly that the work is far from
complete, because the ultimate goal has not been reached.
“We know that we haven’t reached our goal. We haven’t ended polio,” said
John F. Germ, chair of Rotary’s US$200 Million Challenge Committee. “Our
clubs are still planning polio fundraisers for the coming years and
encouraging donations from people in their communities.”
Germ announced that, as of 4 May, Rotarians and supporters have raised
$215.7 million for the challenge, which runs through June. But with the
Global Polio Eradication Initiative facing a significant funding shortfall
for 2012 and beyond, it is vital for clubs and districts to keep pushing
forward with their many creative fundraisers.
Public health emergency
Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general for polio, emergencies
and country collaboration for the World Health Organization, said India’s
removal from the polio-endemic list is “perhaps the most important milestone
ever on the long road to eradication.”
Rajashree
Birla
“It’s a magnificent achievement. And it is a Rotary achievement,” he said.
“Today, Rotary’s vision of a polio-free world is much closer to reality.”
But an upsurge in cases of paralysis from polio in Nigeria, Pakistan, and
Afghanistan and recent polio outbreaks in China, the Congo, and Tajikistan
have also prompted what he called an “unprecedented push” to finally end the
disease. He said 192 ministers of health will meet next week and declare
polio a public health emergency.
“The world understands the full consequences of failure,” he said. “We must
be faster, we must be more focused and each one of us must be fully
accountable.”
Indian philanthropist Rajashree Birla, who has given more than $4.2 million
to the Foundation for polio eradication, said she has been “overwhelmed with
Rotary’s polio efforts.”
Amanda Martin
Birla’s late husband, Aditya, built the family business into one of India’s
largest. Today, Birla and her son, Kumar Mangalam, head the Aditya Birla
Group, a Fortune 500 company.
Birla stressed the need for business accountability and community service.
Her Giving to Living campaign encourages corporations to “embed giving into
their DNA.”
“When a corporation pushes its energies and helps resolve social sector
issues through engagement, it indirectly stimulates its own business
development,” said Birla. “There is much to be gained when business leaders
take giving to heart, and set the mandate of making a difference by caring
for people in their community.”
Service to Humanity award
Former Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholar John Skerritt was presented
with the 2011-12 Global Alumni Service to Humanity Award by Rotary
Foundation Trustee Chair William B. Boyd.
President
Elect Sakuji Tanaka
“Just as Rotary Fellowships help build international understanding, I had
the privilege of leading a program of postgraduate training for over 300
agricultural scientists from 18 developing countries to assist in building
the next generation of thinkers and leaders,” said Skerritt.
In his keynote address, Boyd noted the difference the Rotary Foundation
makes in lives daily.
“When a group calling themselves Rotarians comes to a village and asks what
are the most pressing needs that can be worked through together and the
answer is water, you can understand the opportunity that this gives the
woman who spends three hours each day walking with her teenage daughter to
collect dirty water as that is the only supply available,” he said.
President
Nominee Ron D. Burton
“A water supply to her village will give her time to grow food, will enable
her daughter to be educated, her other children will not be constantly sick,
and maybe she can get a microcredit loan and start a small business. What a
difference that day will bring.”
Amanda Martin, an alumna of the Rotary Peace Center at Chulalongkorn
University in Bangkok, thanked Rotary for the opportunity to broaden her
skills. She said her work as a public health coordinator and teacher in a
refugee camp on the border of Thailand and Myanmar is “inspiring and
fulfilling.”
“Rotary has already made a dramatic difference in my life and is having a
profound ripple effect, radiating from me to my students and onto the
impoverished populations that they will serve as public health workers,”
said Martin.
In his closing remarks, RI President Kalyan Banerjee
reminded Rotarians that “what’s important in Rotary isn’t what we say. It’s
what we do, and who we are.”
“There dwells within you the power and spirit that can evoke the energy you
may not realize,” Banerjee said. “You have to be hungry enough to reach
within and release the energy to help you embrace humanity. I believe this
is the state we call happiness. I have just given you the prescription for
it. Rotary can help you achieve happiness in life that you seek.”
Peace through Service
Incoming RI President Sakuji Tanaka outlined his plans for his term, which
begins 1 July. Tanaka will ask Rotarians to achieve Peace through Service.
“Through service we learn that the problems that may seem large to us are
really very small,” said Tanaka. “We learn empathy for others. We come
closer to people who seem very different from us. And we begin to understand
how much we are all the same.”
“Through our Rotary service, we know that cooperation is more productive
than conflict,” he said. “We know that every one of us has something to
give, and everyone has something to teach.”
R.I. President Kalyan Banrjee
congratulatesJohn Skerritt (left) as he receives the 2011-12 Global Alumni
Service to Humanity Award from Rotary Foundation Trustee Chair William B.
Boyd.
Delegates elected nominee Ron D. Burton, of the Rotary
Club of Norman, Oklahoma, USA, as the 2013-14 RI president during the fourth
plenary session earlier in the day.
“I am both honored and humbled to accept the nomination of president of
Rotary International,” Burton said in his acceptance remarks. “I take a
tremendous amount of pride in being a Rotarian. To me, Rotary isn’t just
another service organization. It is something different, something special.”
Burton says the best years are still to come for Rotary. He emphasized RI’s
Strategic Plan as the tool to make that happen.
“The plan is a way to look clearly at who we are, where we are going, and
how we should get there,” said Burton. “It’s a powerful reminder of our
goals and priorities, which at their heart are the same as they’ve been
since Rotary was founded.”
Achieving peace
Jose Ramos-Horta, president of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste,
talked about his country’s struggle to achieve peace. He told Rotarians that
peace can be difficult but, with the right people in place, it’s attainable.
“Peace is a process - sometimes a long one, too long. It can be a formal
political process,” said Ramos-Horta. “But to be sustained we have to deal
with human beings as individuals, as communities, as people with traumas,
emotions, and anger, but also with hopes, hearts, and feelings.”
Binota and Kalyan Banerjee
have a lot to smile about having dedicated most of their lives ‘Reaching
Within to Serve Humanity’.
