World Rotary Africa

Resources for refugees Rotary peace fellow helps refugees fleeing Myanmar Since August 2017, nearly a million Rohingya Muslim refugees have crowded into the Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh, fleeing violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state. Women and children face particularly difficult challenges in the massive refugee camps, including lack of adequate shelter, health care, and educational resources, and an increased risk of sexual violence. Sakun Gajurel worked in Italy and in her native Nepal with United Nations agencies before studying international development policy at the Rotary Peace Center at Duke University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a part of her  Rotary Peace Fellowship , Gajurel spent the summer of 2018 working in Cox’s Bazar with an organization called  UN Women  that provides direct aid to women in the refugee camps. Illustration by Viktor Miller Gausa Q : What are the greatest challenges in getting aid to Cox’s B...

U SEARCH The Rotary Foundation inducted into University of Oxford’s Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors The Rotary Foundation has been welcomed into the University of Oxford’s Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors for its continuous support of the university. Mr. Michael Webb, Trustee of The Rotary Foundation and CCB representative, with The Rt Hon Lord Patten of Barnes, CH, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Photo by John Cairns Since 1949,  The Foundation  has provided scholarships to more than 200 Oxford scholars including a former American ambassador to the United Kingdom, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and investigative reporter with the New York Times, and a Director & Senior Fellow at the Ansari Africa Centre. “The university is enormously grateful to The Rotary Foundation for their support of graduate scholarships at Oxford,” said Professo...

Climb every mountain A Rotaractor ventures deep into her native Uganda with a polio vaccination team as part of Rotary’s newest virtual reality film, Two Drops of Patience By  Patience Asiimwe As told to Diana Schoberg SHARE: SHARE ON FACEBOOK TWEET THIS PAGE EMAIL THIS PAGE Health workers must have a lot of passion. They face so many challenges to reach every child with the polio vaccine.  I found that out when I traveled to a mountain community on the border of Uganda and Kenya, 200 miles from my home in Kampala, to join a vaccination team. Just getting to the homes was a challenge, let alone persuading the parents to let us in. We had to park the cars, carry our coolers with the polio vaccine safely tucked inside between ice packs, and move on our own two feet, just walking and walking. It’s a bit of a trick – using your hands to steady yourself while you climb, yet still having to carry this heavy cooler. There were lots of streams and rivers, and at t...

Rotary clubs in Canada invest in the PACT program, an urban peace initiative that aims to break the cycle of youth crime By  Ryan Hyland Produced by  Andrew Chudzinski SHARE ON FACEBO I EMAIL THIS PAG E Akeem Stephenson wanted to go to jail. He believed it was the only way he could free himself from a life of crime — a life he desperately wanted to change.  After being arrested for a fourth time more than 10 years ago, for aggravated robbery, the teenager in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, was set to go to prison. But the judge saw something in Stephenson that suggested that he could redeem himself. So he gave Stephenson a choice: participate in an 18-month youth program, or serve the six-month sentence.  Akeem Stephenson used the PACT program to turn his life around and launch his music career.  For Stephenson, the choice was clear. He decided to transform his life through the PACT Urban Peace Program. PACT, which stands for Participati...