Rotary Foundation:doing good in the world

Fri, Dec 7th 2018 at 12:09 pm - 12:09 pm

Chris Barnett, Chairman of Rotary Foundation for District 1120, talks to the club about the work of the Foundation.


Rotary Foundation: doing good in the world

At a recent meeting of the Rotary Club of South Foreland members were given a clear and comprehensive account of The Rotary Foundation by Chris Barnett, current Chairman of Rotary Foundation for District 1120 (South East England and Gibraltar).  The Foundation of Rotary International was established in 1917 for doing good in the world and focuses on six areas: peace and conflict resolution, disease prevention and treatment, water and sanitation, maternal and child health, education and literacy, and economic and community development.  Since 1917 it has spent $3 billion on life saving and sustainable service projects.

While the Rotary Club of South Foreland was only founded in 1985, it has already contributed $76,381 dollars to Rotary Foundation, which has three separate funds: the World Fund, made up of annual contributions from Rotary Clubs all over the world; the Endowment Fund made up of donations and bequests, and the Polio Fund, with the specific aim of eradicating polio.  What makes the Foundation different to other large charitable organisations is that almost all the money is spent on service projects planned and administered by Rotarians and supported by Global and District Grants.  District Grants of approximately $1,000 can be used for small scale projects such as Canterbury Sunrise Rotary Club providing camping equipment for a local youth club so that members could take part in the Duke of Edinburgh Award, or the Rotary Club of South Foreland taking two teams from Folkestone Invicta to an international football tournament for the disabled in Calais.

Global Grants start at $30,000 with a maximum of $200,000. Clubs applying will need an international partner and a project aligned with the areas of focus; the District will also help with finance and the application process. An example is the Rotary Club of Margate organising a project to provide transport to school for poor children whose parents work on a tea plantation in Sri Lanka but could not afford transport; this scheme improved the children’s lives considerably.

Apart from supporting humanitarian projects Global Grants provide vocational training teams which are groups of professionals who travel abroad to teach local people, such as the team of gynaecologists which uses simulated training for local health and care workers in deprived areas with the aim of decreasing infant mortality.  Global Grants also provide scholarships for graduate level students to further their studies: a graduate of Kent University is being supported to study an MA in Public Administration at the Robert Wagner Graduate School in New York.  Her ambition is to work with the education of refugee children.

The most notable and extensive achievement of The Rotary Foundation has been the reduction of polio worldwide: in 1988 polio was endemic in 125 countries while this year only in 2, with 27 new cases.  Chris emphasised the importance of continued fund raising for the End Polio Now Campaign, as the disease can still recur until there have been no new cases for three years.  Great progress has been made but we are not there yet.

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