Standing Together

 Ok, I spent quite a bit of time writing a column for my club newsletter this afternoon. Kim liked it, so I thought I would post it for your perusal. Hope you enjoy:


World Understanding and Peace Month. That’s right - February is a month where Rotarians around the world are encouraged to focus on building international understanding, goodwill, and of course promoting peace.

Lately the headlines have been dominated by the protests and violence in Egypt, as the people there struggle to improve their lot in life. It is very hard to decipher from the news reports what is really happening. I was thinking about this and it occurred to me, “What about Rotary clubs in Egypt? Are there clubs there, how many, what do they do?”

Well, a little surfing on the internet produced some answers. Egypt is included in Rotary District 2450. This District encompasses 10 countries (in whole or part) and serves 140 clubs. The countries include Armenia, Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia, Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan, UAE, and the Palestinian Authority. Wow!

Egyptian Rotarians visit their street girls shelter project 
in Karmounse

I checked out one of the Egyptian club’s web sites (Rotary Club of Alexandria), and found that they are made up of 40% women and 60% men. Their web page indicates they are composed of 10 different cultures, and have chosen English as their “language of communication”. Their projects include a special emphasis on improving the lives of mothers and children. Their projects focus on “children in need, including blind, deaf and mute, orphans, and street children.”

They recently completed a project in partnership with a non-governmental organization to provide a shelter for “street girls”.

It was nice to look at pictures of local Rotarians doing good works in their local community on the other side of the world, especially in such a troubled part of the world. It reminded me of our work here: Rotarians at Work Day, helping local kids afford college, our literacy project, etc.

The District Governor of District 2450 had posted a letter to Rotarians on the home page of the website. Here is what he said:

“LETTER TO All ROTARIANS

Alexandria the 6th of February 2011
Dear Fellow Rotarians

I would like at first to thank all of you who either called me personally or contacted any of the Rotarians of Egypt during these hard times.

The past couple of weeks showed us all that we as Egyptians are strong, it showed us that we could stand up to anything and that we all cared for each other. 

It was not a time of weakness but a time of strength. Teens and youth stayed up all night to guard their homes, young men stood in the streets to monitor traffic and we all stood hand in hand in the streets to clean up the trash and sweep the streets. All the true colors really came to life. 

The situation now is bit by bit improving and we are gradually returning back to our day to day lives. Positive changes have been made and hopefully we will be living a better tomorrow” 

Living a better tomorrow - isn’t that a pretty universal desire? Again it was very heartening to read this message of reassurance from the leader of Rotary in 10 countries. The images I saw on TV were very different from teens and youth staying up all night to guard homes, young men stepping into the street to help with traffic control, crowds working together to clean up the streets.

Being a member of Rotary, is being a member of the larger world community in a very meaningful way. We can “stand together” as Rotarians and take action that makes the world a better place for people to live.

The first Rotary meeting took place in Chicago on February 23, 1905. Imagine a handful of businessmen sitting down together and talking about “stuff”. Today, 1.2 million Rotarians around the globe meet together and break bread and talk about “stuff”. Seems like that in itself does a lot to promote understanding, and maybe even peace.

It took over 100 years for Rotary to develop into the magnificent worldwide movement that it is today. We are where we are because of the hard work and dedication of individual Rotarians. The ball is in our hands. It’s our responsibility to keep pushing the movement into the future: build stronger clubs, get more members, do more service projects...just keep taking one step at a time.

It seems fitting that February is World Understanding and Peace Month. After all it is the month that Rotary was founded. Here’s to our next hundred years!!

That's All!!