1.1. The Rotary in a few words
February 23, 1905. A young lawyer from Chicago, Paul Harris, met three friends at home: a tailor, a coal dealer and a mining engineer. The four men, questioned and motivated by the difficulties and moral drifts they encountered, had the same goal: to try to revive and recover, in the big cities, the spirit of friendship and mutual assistance between businessmen whom they had known in the small towns of their childhood. They were of American, German, Swedish and Irish origins, and of Protestant, Israelite and Catholic faiths.
Soon, other businessmen who shared their goals attended their meetings and, by the end of 1905, the Rotary Club of Chicago already had 30 members: it was a team of various jobs, working in a climate of trust, friendship and integrity, to be “kind, respectful and helpful to one another”. The name “Rotary” was selected for their group due to the fact that its members met in turn, every week, at their workplace. The Rotary grew rapidly and became an International Organization as early as 1912. One hundred years later, Rotary has more than 1,200,000 members in 33,700 Rotary Clubs around the world.
Rotary is therefore a cluster of various skills and professions, men and women, of high probity, with well-agreed expertise, issued from all the countries in the world, respectful of human beings, who are working to achieve the development of harmony and understanding between people, trying to improve their standard of life and promoting peace, without any distinction of culture, race or religion.
The Rotary International (RI)1 has always been committed to serving the general and global interest. The Rotary members have to apply their “Ideal of Servicing” either in their private area, or their vocational and public life. This commitment is centered on five basic domains of action that form the cornerstone upon which the club’s activities are based. To provide more meaning and consistency to our actions, a vision, or strategic plan, has recently been set-up.
1.3. Organization of actions and projects in the Rotary
Rotary members are helping others in communities around the world every day through thousands of service projects. For this purpose, the organization, common to most Rotary Clubs, is set up and renewed every year:
- – Each club elects its own president and officers among its active members for a one-year term. The clubs enjoy considerable autonomy within the framework of the standard constitution and the constitution and bylaws of The RI. The governing body of the club is the Club Board, consisting of the club president (who serves as the Board chairman), a president-elect, club secretary, club treasurer and several Club Board directors, including the immediate past president and the President Elect.
- – The president usually appoints the directors to serve as chairs of the major club committees, including those responsible for club service, vocational service, community service, youth service and international service.
Indeed, The Rotary Club is often organized in five parts, or responsibilities, so that they can initiate, implement and follow all the programs and projects in progress:
- 1) Club service (domestic actions): the internal action consists of ensuring the management of the Club, strengthening the spirit of friendship and ensuring its smooth and effective operational management.
- 2) Vocational service: professional action encourages Rotarians to serve others through their vocational job and to apply their sense of ethics. Rotarians can share their expertise and skills with altruism and thus be a model and motivating factor for other partners. They must observe rules of high probity in the discharge of their duties, in any profession, respect the dignity of any useful occupation and consider the professional work fulfilled by each Rotarian as a possible vehicle of actions to help in the improvement of the society.
- 3) Community service (local public interest actions): public service action allows clubs to take action and undertake activities to improve the wellbeing of the local community.
- 4) International service (global public interest action): international action includes actions to extend the humanitarian reach of The Rotary worldwide, and to promote altruism, respect for peace and mutual understanding among people. It is carried out through contributions to PolioPlus and through the help given to young professionals to participate in an exchange and to adapt to a host country.
- 5) Youth service (young generation actions): the young generation action recognizes the positive changes brought about by young people and young adults through leadership development activities, local and overseas action and exchange programs that enrich and develop peace and prosperity.
- 6) To develop Youth Services, an International agreement has been setup, and several youth programs have been defined and implemented through, for example: Rotaract, Interact, RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards), student exchanges, scholarships, etc.
