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learn about
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 30,000
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.
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.
Although Rotary clubs
develop autonomous service programs, all
Rotarians worldwide are united in a
campaign for the global eradication of
polio. In the 1980s, Rotarians raised
US$240 million to immunize the children
of the world; by 2005, Rotary's centenary
year and the target date for the
certification of a polio-free world, the
PolioPlus program will have contributed
US$500 million to this cause. In
addition, Rotary has provided an army of
volunteers to promote and assist at
national immunization days in
polio-endemic countries around the
world.
the four 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:
1. Is it the
TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to
all concerned?
3. Will it build
GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be
BENEFICIAL to all concerned?"
rotary
history
The world's first
service club, the Rotary Club of Chicago,
Illinois, USA, was formed on 23 February
1905 by Paul P. Harris, an attorney who
wished to recapture in a professional
club the same friendly spirit he had felt
in the small towns of his youth. The name
"Rotary" derived from the early practice
of rotating meetings among members'
offices.
Rotary's
popularity spread throughout the United States
in the decade that followed; clubs were
chartered from San Francisco to New York. By
1921, Rotary clubs had been formed on six
continents, and the organization adopted the
name Rotary International a year
later.
As Rotary grew, its
mission expanded beyond serving the
professional and social interests of club
members. Rotarians began pooling their
resources and contributing their talents
to help serve communities in need. The
organization's dedication to this ideal
is best expressed in its principal motto:
Service Above Self. Rotary also later
embraced a code of ethics, called The
4-Way Test, that has been translated into
hundreds of languages.
During and after
World War II, Rotarians became increasingly
involved in promoting international
understanding. A Rotary conference held in
London in 1942 planted the seeds for the
development of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),
and numerous Rotarians have served as
consultants to the United
Nations.
An endowment fund, set
up by Rotarians in 1917 "for doing good
in the world," became a not-for-profit
corporation known as The Rotary
Foundation in 1928. Upon the death of
Paul Harris in 1947, an outpouring of
Rotarian donations made in his honor,
totaling US$2 million, launched the
Foundation's first program —— graduate
fellowships, now called Ambassadorial
Scholarships. Today, contributions to The
Rotary Foundation total more than US$80
million annually and support a wide range
of humanitarian grants and educational
programs that enable Rotarians to bring
hope and promote international
understanding throughout the
world.
In 1985, Rotary made a
historic commitment to immunize all of
the world's children against polio.
Working in partnership with
nongovernmental organizations and
national governments thorough its
PolioPlus program, Rotary is the largest
private-sector contributor to the global
polio eradication campaign. Rotarians
have mobilized hundreds of thousands of
PolioPlus volunteers and have immunized
more than one billion children worldwide.
By the 2005 target date for certification
of a polio-free world, Rotary will have
contributed half a billion dollars to the
cause.
As it approached the
dawn of the 21st century, Rotary worked
to meet the changing needs of society,
expanding its service effort to address
such pressing issues as environmental
degradation, illiteracy, world hunger,
and children at risk. The organization
admitted women for the first time in 1989
and claims more than 90,000 women in its
ranks today. Following the collapse of
the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of
the Soviet Union, Rotary clubs were
formed or re-established throughout
Central and Eastern Europe. Today, 1.2
million Rotarians belong to some 30,000
Rotary clubs in more than 160
countries.
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