| Rotary is a worldwide organisation
of business and professional leaders that provides
humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards
in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace
in the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong
to more than 30,000 clubs in more than 160 countries.
Founded
in Chicago in 1905 as the world’s
first volunteer service organisation Rotary quickly
expanded round the globe and is now the world's largest
service organisation for business and professional
people of any age, sex and ethnic background.
The Rotary Foundation is the charitable trust fund
of Rotary International. Its mission is to enable
Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill
and peace through the improvement of health, the support
of education and the alleviation of poverty. The Rotary
Foundation is supported solely by voluntary contributions
from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share
its vision of a better world.
An
example of the successful initiatives underway is
the PolioPlus programme where Rotary International
is the spearheading member of the Global Polio Eradication
Initiative and is the largest private sector donor.
It has contributed more than US$600 million to the
polio eradication activities in 122 countries. In
addition, tens of thousands of Rotarians have partnered
with their national ministries of health, UNICEF,
the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, and with health providers
at the grassroots level in thousands of communities.
Polio has now been almost eradicated and only now
exists in a very small number of
isolated areas.
www.rotary-ribi.org
see
also www.rotary.org |