ROTARIANS SERVE, SHARE AND ACHIEVE
When will things really start going in
asked in connection with
trip to a number of African states, this past week.
Well, to the BBC World News program that asked the question and to the
rest
of the folks interested in what the …heck… happens to all that aid money
that’s earmarked for
announcement to make. Rotary provides hundreds of millions of dollars in
aid to the emerging world. Rotary knows how to deliver humanitarian
support
and, specifically, knows how to deliver health aid in
knows that delivering aid in that ancient continent can have its challenges
and frustrations. Rotary is committed to completely containing the
wild
polio virus everywhere in the world by the year 2005. Three of the five
remaining uncompleted polio immunization programs are in western
have the cure; we have the people. They want Rotary, and they want their
kids to be polio free.
There is, admittedly, a bridge of trust, particularly in certain Moslem
communities. Rotary is overcoming hesitancy and gaining trust. Mr.
President, take a page from Rotary’s book. Don’t do it for the sound
bite.
Do it because it’s the right thing to do. Do it because you made a
commitment. And don’t put it in the hands of the ‘big wigs” at the top,
not
with complicated bureaucracies that takes their cut in administrative
services but, rather, with caring and committed people in the cities,
villages and rural areas where help is needed.
The Report of the World Conference on Poverty, held in
this past year, tells it all. For international development assistance to
be effective, there must be real accountability.
Simply put: how was the
money spent and who benefited. The Conference found that the
implementation of such social and economic assistance needs to be audited
“in the field”, preferably by qualified local people not directly
benefiting. Over and over, Rotary was singled out as an organization with
such capabilities. We can do the job. No matter where in the world,
Rotarians serve, share and achieve.
Rotary, like the United Nations, now has an African leader. Mr.
Jonathan
Majigabe is not only a distinguished barrister, a man
of firm faith and
conviction but also a Rotarian who understands the challenges of poverty,
violence and marginalization. In both our own New York Rotary and in
District 7230, we have a 3-year school rehabilitation project in District
9250, comprising part of
(two of which nations were recently visited by Mr. Bush). Through the
Group
Study Exchange, we also exchanged five of our best and brightest with five
of those from that African District. We are sharing with one another and
learning as we share. Rotary is such an impressive movement when sharing,
with folks never seen and half a world away, can be so satisfying. Why
are
we able to share with communities so far away? We can because Rotarian
the
world over speak the same language, that of service. Together, we
know, we
’ll get any job done. And we’ll get rich not
from what we’re siphoning off,
but, rather, rich from what we are giving.
We’ll get Polio done, and then conquer the next obstacle to peace and
development and then the next. We’ll do it through our
contributions; we’ll do it when we become Paul Harris Fellows, and we shall
LEND A HAND. Most importantly, we achieve when we share the “secret” of
Rotary with a colleague or a friend and welcome new members to our Club and
new energy to Rotary. When we share, we serve.
Yours in Rotary,
Greg Lynch
President
The
Rotary Club of