Rotary has grown from the one club started in Chicago 1905 to 34,244 clubs as on 1st July, 2011; from 4 members, it has swelled to 12,21,610 members. It has spread from a city in USA to become truly international. Our District has 108 clubs with 4,532 members. Rotary’s contribution to the communities all over the world has grown tremendously over the years. The Rotary Foundation is the largest trust, providing help to the underprivileged people all over the the world.
All these were possible because the organization grew with more members joining the movement and strengthening its structure and extending its reach. If it has to better the lives of more people, it has to grow in number and depth. That is possible only if every club inducts more and younger members who sympathize with its cause and are ready to serve above self. Focused and organized attention to the issue of membership development is necessary to grow.
The membership number has been around 1.2 million for quite sometime. While some zones show growth in the membership number, other zones drag it down. Asia seems to be doing better compared to the USA and Europe. India has shown tremendous growth and is the largest by membership, next to the USA.
Foundation alumni empower communities in South Africa and India
Growth of Rotary
From developing a music program for at-risk children to generating employment opportunities for women, former Rotary Peace Fellows and Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholars are promoting economic development in regions that need it most.
Yashar Keramati, a 2009-10 Ambassadorial Scholar from Canada, recently returned to Fisantekraal, South Africa, to launch his Peace & Love International initiative. "If it were not for the Foundation, I would not be able to have come here to do what I have been doing," he says.
With violence and drugs dominating the streets of Fisantekraal, Keramati says that young people have little opportunity for education and positive personal growth. Peace & Love International aims to create such opportunities through music.
Workshops, held at least four times a week, offer dance practice and song-writing sessions. Through the songs, Keramati concentrates on important issues like drug awareness and respect for those of other genders and religions.
"The goal of this initiative is to create a musical haven and nonthreatening space for the community’s youth, which they have been denied," he says. "A highlight was one of our outings where we were invited to Cape Town’s biggest radio station to have our kids perform live on the air."
In South Africa, Erin Koepke, a 2010-11 Ambassadorial Scholar from the USA, partnered with Abalimi Bezekhaya, a nonprofit that introduces the poor townships to sustainable food sources through urban farming. The effort resulted in many farmers selling their produce through the organization’s Harvest of Hope program. "I was eager to get involved with the organization, so I jumped at the opportunity to create an Abalimi-Harvest of Hope cookbook to sell as a way to market the program and provide an additional source of income to support their cause in Cape Town," Koepke says.
RI President met the press when he was in Chennai in July. To a question how Rotary perceived India now, he said: "India is one of the stronger Rotary countries and that is why you have a [Rotary] president from India. While membership in India is growing, membership in all the other countries is not growing as fast. We are among the fastest growing countries. Perhaps in future, the headquarters might shift out of America."
She teamed up with two other Ambassadorial Scholars and cooked with several farmers to learn traditional cuisine, using vegetables the farmers had grown. The resulting recipes were compiled into the Seed to Table cookbook. Net proceeds from sales of the book are donated to Abalimi Bezekhaya to help support organic micro-farmers in Cape Town.
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Former Rotary Scholars and others celebrate the publication of Seed to Table at a book store in Cape Town