What is Rotary?
For more information about Rotary International,
please visit
www.rotary.org
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Paul
Harris |
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. In 1945,
49 Rotary members served in 29 delegations to the United Nations Charter
Conference. Rotary still actively participates in UN conferences by
sending observers to major meetings and promoting the United Nations in
Rotary publications. Rotary International's relationship with the United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
dates back to a 1943 London Rotary conference that promoted
international cultural and educational exchanges. Attended by ministers
of education and observers from around the world, and chaired by a past
president of RI, the conference was an impetus to the establishment of
UNESCO in 1946.
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
Polio Plus program, Rotary is the largest private-sector contributor
to the global polio eradication campaign. Rotarians have mobilized
hundreds of thousands of Polio Plus 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 (worldwide) 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 31,000 Rotary clubs in 166
countries.
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.
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 test 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?"
The mission of Rotary International is to support its
member clubs in fulfilling the Object of Rotary by:
- Fostering unity among member clubs;
- Strengthening and expanding Rotary around the
world;
- Communicating worldwide the work of Rotary; and
- Providing a system of international
administration.
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