Rotary Foundation

Foundation - Rotary's Charity
The mission of The Rotary Foundation 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 time we take to serve those  who need us can be the turing point, not only in their lives but also in our own.

Through Foundation, overseas projects can obtain District Grants and National Grants, which effectively  double or treble the amount of funding raised by our club for international projects. Examples of Foundation in action within the Leigh Club are:~

Refurbishment of Bimma – a village in Ghana

In 2008 the Rotary Club of Leigh, supported by other clubs and with grants from Rotary District, commenced a project to refurbish the village of Bimma, which had 240 inhabitants. We raised and spent about £80000 (£33 per head) and delivered 101 toilets, 6 capped and pumped boreholes, a food processing plant, a secondary school, a kindergarten, farm training and loans that enabled the villagers to start small enterprises. This village is now the biggest producer of vegetables in Ashanti and the villagers have worked themselves out of poverty. They did all the work themselves with us providing materials, advice, and specialist skills. From losing 1 in 5 children to malnutrition and water borne diseases, they now don’t lose any!

In 2020, we are undertaking a new, smaller project along with 7 local clubs, to refurbish Jansa Village. More details are on the International Page of this website, or CLICK TO VIEW BROCHURE

End Polio Now - Rotary spearheaded this campaign in 1988 when there were over 1,000 polio cases every day, in 125 countries, paralysing and killing children. Today, the number of cases is down by 99.9% and the Wild Polio Disease remains in just Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Over the last 35 years, Rotary members, working with communities around the world, have contributed more than £1.57 billion, countless volunteer hours and many volunteers have even been killed whilst helping this cause. This campaign is supported by Governments, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation and by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, who donate a further £2 for every £1 we raise.

Because of the efforts of Rotary, nearly 19 million people who would otherwise have been paralysed are walking, and more than 1.5 million people are alive who would otherwise have died.