Rotary
International D. K. Lee's May Message
May 2009
Dear fellow Rotarians,
At a child mortality
intercity meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, in April, I gave a keynote
speech about a topic dear to me: improving the lives of children
globally and reducing their mortality. Because this has been my
special emphasis during my presidential year, it's been gratifying
to see and hear about all the Rotary club and district projects
that improve children's lives.
Besides giving the speech,
I was busy in Ohio. My wife, Young, and I participated in a Four-Way
Test speech contest held at the Rotary Club of Burton-Middlefield,
visited clubs in District 6690, and attended Rotary club lunches
in Columbus and Newark. We then continued to Tennessee, where we
visited the Rotary clubs of Hendersonville and Chattanooga. In Cookeville,
we enjoyed visiting the Rotary club of Past RI President James Lacy
and meeting a Group Study Exchange team visiting from India.
In mid-April we flew
to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for the dedication ceremony of the Rotary
Mother and Child Medical Complex and the Tumbi Hospital renovation
project in Kibaha. Rotarians from Korea and other parts of the world
sponsored this effort. I was proud to see their plans finally beginning
to unfold. Next, we traveled to the United Kingdom to attend a joint
club meeting in Lothian, Scotland, and to participate in the Rotary
International in Great Britain and Ireland (RIBI) Conference in
Edinburgh. They were wonderful events. In addition, I presented
a new club charter and visited Comely Bank, the area of Edinburgh
that Paul Harris's Chicago home was named after. At the end of April,
Young and I traveled to intercity meetings in Bucharest, Romania;
Sofia, Bulgaria; and St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia.
In May we continued
our travels, visiting Amman, Jordan; Israel; Mongolia; and the Caribbean
for more intercity meetings. We went to so many special projects
sponsored by Rotary clubs and districts, including the Save a Child's
Heart project at the Wolfson Medical Center, located in District
2490 (Israel). Its mission is to prevent child mortality by treating
heart disease. We particularly liked spending time with the children
and mothers at this medical center and seeing how the facility improved
their lives. We concluded the month with an intercity meeting in
Mongolia, and then with a visit to the Caribbean, including Puerto
Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados.
We are making final
preparations to attend 100th anniversary club celebrations in Seattle
and Los Angeles in early June and to visit a Rotary club in Santa
Monica, California. From there, we will go to Rome, where we anticipate
an audience with the pope and plan to attend an intercity meeting.
After that, we'll go to the United Kingdom to attend the RI Board
meeting in Dublin, Ireland. We're looking forward to a very successful
RI Convention in Birmingham, England, which will begin soon after.
As I look back on my
year as RI president, I'm grateful to have experienced this unique
and awesome responsibility. In the 60 countries Young and I visited,
we have seen so many Rotarian volunteers who have demonstrated compassion
and humanity by carrying out Rotary's motto of Service Above Self.
We're grateful to the staff at RI headquarters and the international
offices for their hard work and dedication in making our journey
possible.
I will always fondly
recall the dignitaries and non-Rotarians all over the world with
whom we've shared Rotary's message of peace and its mission of making
the world polio-free. We've been shown gracious hospitality in the
largest and smallest of places we have visited. We will be eternally
grateful to all of our hosts for making our journey a memorable
one. We look forward to seeing many of you at the RI Convention
in Birmingham and meeting even more of our Rotary family and friends!
Dong Kurn (D.K.) Lee
President, Rotary International
TRF Chairman's
May 2009 Message
Every Rotarian Every
Year
Dear family of Rotary,
In challenging economic
times, it is vitally important to use The Rotary Foundation’s
resources to help meet growing humanitarian needs. Through the Every
Rotarian, Every Year initiative, our contributions to the Foundation’s
Annual Programs Fund can be lifesaving for people in desperate circumstances.
We can each help Make
Dreams Real through the Foundation’s humanitarian and educational
programs by giving at least US$100 to the Annual Programs Fund every
year. Rotarians, clubs, and districts can also make challenge gifts
to the fund, boosting the Foundation’s ability to reach more
people in need.
How great a difference
can our contributions make? We see the results of our work when,
because of a Foundation grant project, a child drinks clean water
from a well, a person learns to read, or a family earns income from
a business started with a microcredit loan. We see the effects in
the life-changing experiences of Ambassadorial Scholars and Group
Study Exchange teams, who in turn touch the lives of other people
in their home and host countries.
Every Rotarian, every
contribution, and every project and program participant makes a
difference every year. Through the Foundation’s programs,
Rotarians are strengthening understanding between nations and helping
to lay the groundwork for global peace.
The Rotary Foundation
is one of the most respected private foundations in the world. By
giving our ongoing support to its programs, we as Rotarians can
be confident that our service efforts are being multiplied many
times over for the benefit of humankind.
Jonathan Majiyagbe
Foundation Trustee Chair
Source: Rotary International
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