Rotary

Rotary is an organization of business and professional leaders united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations, and help build goodwill and peace in the world. In more than 160 countries worldwide, approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 29,000 Rotary clubs.

Rotary club membership represents a cross-section of the community's business and professional men and women. The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds.

Objective of Rotary

The main objective of Rotary is service — in the community, in the workplace, and throughout the world. Rotarians develop community service projects that address many of today's most critical issues, such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment, illiteracy, and violence. They also support programs for youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for students, teachers, and other professionals, and vocational and career development.

The Rotary motto is Service Above Self.

The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

FIRST. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;

SECOND. High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society;

THIRD. The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business, and community life;

FOURTH. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

The 4-Way Test

From the earliest days of the organization, Rotarians were concerned with promoting high ethical standards in their professional lives. One of the world's most widely printed and quoted statements of business ethics is The 4-Way Test, which was created in 1932 by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor (who later served as RI president) when he was asked to take charge of a company that was facing bankruptcy. This 24-word code of ethics for employees to follow in their business and professional lives became the guide for sales, production, advertising, and all relations with dealers and customers, and the survival of the company is credited to this simple philosophy. Adopted by Rotary in 1943, The 4-Way Test has been translated into more than a hundred languages and published in thousands of ways. It asks the following four questions:

"Of the things we think, say or do:

Is it the TRUTH?
Is it FAIR to all concerned?
Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?

Rotary Milestones

1905	First Rotary club organized in Chicago, Illinois, USA
1908	Second club formed in San Francisco, California, USA
1910	First Rotary convention held in Chicago
1912	First club outside US formed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
1917	Endowment fund, forerunner of The Rotary Foundation, established
1933	4-Way Test formulated by Chicago Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor
1945	Forty-nine Rotarians help draft United Nations Charter in San Francisco
1947	Rotary founder Paul Harris dies; first 18 Rotary Foundation scholarships granted
1962	First Interact club formed in Melbourne, Florida, USA
1965	Rotary Foundation launches Matching Grants and Group Study Exchange programs
1978	RI's largest convention, with 39,834 registrants, held in Tokyo
1985	Rotary announces PolioPlus program to immunize all the children of the world against polio
1989	Council on Legislation opens Rotary to women; Rotary clubs chartered in Budapest, Hungary, and Warsaw, Poland, for first time in almost 50 years
1990	Rotary Club of Moscow charted first club in Soviet Union
1990-91	Preserve Planet Earth program inspires some 2,000 Rotary-sponsored environmental projects
1994	Western Hemisphere declared polio-free
1999	Rotary Centers for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution established

About The Rotary Foundation

The Rotary Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation that supports the efforts of Rotary International to achieve world understanding and peace through international humanitarian, educational, and cultural exchange programs.

The Foundation's Humanitarian Programs fund international Rotary club and district projects to improve the quality of life, providing health care, clean water, food, education, and other essential needs primarily in the developing world. One of the major Humanitarian Programs is PolioPlus, which seeks to eradicate the polio virus worldwide. Through its Educational Programs, the Foundation provides funding for some 1,200 students to study abroad each year. Grants are also awarded to university teachers to teach in developing countries and for exchanges of business and professional people. Former participants in the Foundation's programs have the opportunity to continue their affiliation with Rotary as Foundation Alumni.

The Rotary Foundation is supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world. Included in this section is information pertaining to the history of The Rotary Foundation, its financial support, its Alumni programs, training and resources, and the SHARE system

The PolioPlus Program

In 1985, Rotary International launched PolioPlus, a 20-year commitment to eradicate polio. PolioPlus is one of the most ambitious humanitarian undertakings ever made by a private entity. It will serve as a paradigm for private-public collaborations in the fight against disease well into the 21st century.

As the polio-eradication program grew, so did Rotary's commitment and involvement. By 1990, Rotary moved from providing polio vaccine to children in developing countries to assisting health care workers in the field, providing training for laboratory personnel to track the polio virus and working with governments around the world in supporting the historic health drive. Rotary looks to celebrate the global eradication of polio in 2005, the organization's centennial year.

How is Rotary involved in the global polio-eradication effort?

Financially: In 1985, Rotary was recognized by the World Health Organization as a non-governmental organization working in the field of international health. In the same year, Rotary set a goal to raise US$120 million to provide oral polio vaccine to newborns in the developing world. When the campaign ended, Rotary had doubled its goal, collecting more than $247 million. To date, the PolioPlus program has contributed $373 million to the protection of nearly 2 billion children. By 2005, Rotary's financial commitment will reach nearly $500 million.

On-the-ground assistance: With its community-based network worldwide, Rotary is the volunteer arm of the global partnership dedicated to eradicating polio. Rotary volunteers assist in vaccine delivery, social mobilization, and logistical help in co-operation with the national health ministries, WHO, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rotary's volunteer efforts were instrumental in the eradication of polio from the Western Hemisphere, which was certified polio-free in 1994.

Rotary in action

	The Canadian Rotary Committee For International Development, with generous support from the Canadian government, developed a unique system of turning spare change — "Pennies for Polio" — into hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions for polio eradication. Each dollar contributed was matched once by The Rotary Foundation. The new total was then matched twice by Canada’s Agency for International Development, allowing Canadian Rotarians to multiply their original contributions by six. Funds used have supported polio eradication activities in Nigeria, Togo, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Angola, and Sierra Leone.
	In 1999, more than 100,000 Indian Rotary members and their families joined the government of India in immunizing more than 130 million children on one day, signaling the largest public health event ever in the world.
	In 1996 and 1997, Rotarians in Angola led a campaign to solicit corporate jets, helicopters, and vehicles to move vaccine through Angola's land mine-infested countryside. Additional volunteers mobilized by a single Rotary club helped the government reach 80 percent of its target population of children under five years of age.
	During the late 1980s, 11,000 Rotarians in Peru volunteered in a massive drive to eliminate the virus in one of the last South American countries in which polio still existed. Rotary volunteers assisted national health care workers in door-to-door immunization drives, transporting health care workers to remote vaccination centers, analyzing data, and publicizing the immunization days to raise awareness of the final assault against the crippling disease.
	In countries where there are no Rotary clubs, like Somalia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam, the PolioPlus program not only funded vaccines and promotional materials for National Immunization Days, it also provided on-site volunteer assistance from neighboring countries to assist national authorities in carrying out eradication exercises.
	After extensive efforts to eradicate polio in Cambodia, health officials tracked the remaining pockets of polio to children living on the waterways, who had been missed by the previously held National Immunization Days. Rotary volunteers joined health officials in a boat-to-boat follow-up campaign to successfully reach this population and wipe out the virus.
	In many developing countries, methods of communication vary from street plays to parades. Rotary members in India and Pakistan performed street dramas and organized rallies to educate parents about the need to immunize their children against polio.

Rotary in Action in India

To date, The Rotary Foundation has committed over US$69 million to support polio eradication efforts in the Southeast Asia Region.

In August 1997, an outbreak resulting in more than 200 cases of polio occurred in the Uttar Pradesh region of India. In response, a major laboratory was funded through the PolioPlus Partners program. The establishment of the laboratory should substantially assist India in monitoring transmission of the virus.

In India, a team of 33 Rotary volunteer coordinators has been formed to assist the government and the World Health Organization (WHO) with surveillance exercises. The coordinators will work to persuade pediatricians and parents to report polio cases. They will also liaise with the local government and other concerned parties to support the work of Surveillance Medical Officers. At present, 7,500 centers throughout India support the reporting of suspected cases of polio. The WHO estimates that for surveillance to be effective in a vast country like India up to 20,000 reporting centers may be needed.

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