About The Rotary Foundation

The Rotary Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation that supports the efforts of Rotary International to achieve world understanding and peace through international humanitarian, educational, and cultural exchange programs. It is supported solely by voluntary contributions from Rotarians and friends of the Foundation who share its vision of a better world.

The Foundation was created in 1917 by Rotary International's sixth president, Arch C. Klumph, as an endowment fund for Rotary "to do good in the world." It has grown from an initial contribution of US$26.50 to more than US$55 million contributed in 2002-03. Its event-filled history is a story of Rotarians learning the value of service to humanity.

The Foundation's Humanitarian Programs fund international Rotary club and district projects to improve the quality of life, providing health care, clean water, food, education, and other essential needs primarily in the developing world. One of the major Humanitarian Programs is PolioPlus, which seeks to eradicate the polio virus worldwide. Through its Educational Programs, the Foundation provides funding for some 1,200 students to study abroad each year. Grants are also awarded to university teachers to teach in developing countries and for exchanges of business and professional people. Former participants in the Foundation's programs have the opportunity to continue their affiliation with Rotary as Foundation Alumni.

About PolioPlus

In 1985, Rotary launched the PolioPlus program to protect children worldwide from the cruel and fatal consequences of polio. In 1988, the World Health Assembly challenged the world to eradicate polio. Since that time, Rotary's efforts and those of partner agencies, including the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and governments around the world, have achieved a 99 percent reduction in the number of polio cases worldwide.

Rotarians stand at the brink of a great victory and look forward to celebrating the global eradication of polio.

For more information the Rotary Foundation’s PolioPlus and other material about Polio and the challenges that remain, click on the links to the left.

Skaneateles RC proud history of supporting the

Rotary Foundation

  1. Bullet $112,000 total

  2. Bullet  67 PH Fellows

  3. Bullet  2 Major Donors

  4. Bullet  4 Benefactors

Link to Rotary Foundation

Examples of what gifts to Annual Programs Fund can accomplish

$100 can provide;

  1. Bullet  text books for one elementary school in Zambia

  2. Bullet  cataract operations for three blind individuals in India

  3. Bullet  mosquito netting for 35 homes to help prevent the spread of malaria in Bangladesh

$500 can provide;

  1. Bullet a watch repair mini-business for six disabled workers in the Philippines

  2. Bullet  carpentry tools for a vocational workshop that trains 150 deaf children per year in Gambia

  3. Bullet  five small sewing businesses to give poor mothers in Mexico the ability to lead more self-sufficient lives


 

Group Study Exchange

The Group Study Exchange (GSE) program of The Rotary Foundation is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for young business and professional men and women between the ages of 25 and 40 and in the early years of their professional lives. The program provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits between paired areas in different countries. For four to six weeks, team members experience the host country's institutions and ways of life, observe their own vocations as practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships, and exchange ideas.

    For each team member, The Rotary Foundation provides the most economical round-trip air ticket between the home and host countries. Local Rotarians in the host area provide for meals, lodging, and group travel within their district.

    The Skaneateles Rotary Club has sponsored GSE Team leaders for two GSE team in the past few years. Ward Vuillemot led a Literacy-focused team to South Africa in 2004 and Tara Renner led her team to Peru in 2005.  They and their team members made friends and professional contacts “across the miles” that will last their lifetimes, and have each planted seeds of world peace and understanding through the principle of the Fourth Object of Rotary:  The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.


     District 7150 is exchanging GSE teams with District 2010, Scotland in 2006, between September and October.


Ambassadorial Scholars

The Rotary Foundation's oldest and best-known program is Ambassadorial Scholarships. Since 1947 nearly 37,000 men and women from 100 nations have studied abroad under its auspices. Today it is the world's largest privately funded international scholarships program. Nearly 800 scholarships were awarded for study in 2005-06. Through grants totaling approximately US$500 million, recipients from some 70 countries studied in more than 70 nations.

The purpose of the Ambassadorial Scholarships program is to further international understanding and friendly relations among people of different countries. The program sponsors several types of scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students as well as for qualified professionals pursuing vocational studies. While abroad, scholars serve as ambassadors of goodwill to the people of the host country and give presentations about their homelands to Rotary clubs and other groups. Upon returning home, scholars share with Rotarians and others the experiences that led to greater understanding of their host countries.

Generous contributions from Rotarians worldwide represent continued faith that the students who are Ambassadorial Scholars today will be tomorrow's community and world leaders.

Current D7150 Scholars

Outbound

    none for the 2006-2007 year

Inbound

Ji Yeon Jeong (Korea)

    Hosted by:  Syracuse Sunrise Club

    Attending: Syracuse Univ.

Recent Skaneateles Area Scholars

Sponsored by: Skaneateles Club

Sheila Maher - Italy 2000-01

Michael Doctor - Paris, France 2001-02

Click on picture for many more pictures

Click on picture for many more pictures

Rotary Centers for International Studies
in peace and conflict resolution

Rotary World Peace Fellows are graduates of the Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution program. They will be a part of tomorrow’s solution in promoting greater tolerance and cooperation among people worldwide. Rotary World Peace Fellows, who are chosen from a wide variety of countries, can help future leaders advance knowledge and understanding.

Located in eight leading universities around the world, Rotary Centers provide Fellows the chance to study in a master’s level program in conflict resolution, peace studies, international relations, and other related disciplines.

Rotary World Peace Fellows work toward mediation, conflict resolution, and peace where there is war. Understanding where there is disharmony. Food security where there is hunger. Health care where there is disease. Education where there is illiteracy. Conservation where there is environmental degradation, and sustainable economic development where there is poverty.

Read more information about the world-transforming program, and apply now for a chance to make a difference.

 

Twin Voices

by Janice Flood Nichols

Rotary Foundation and Polio Eradication

PolioPlus - As of June 30, 2007, Rotarians through out the world have mobilized by the hundreds of thousands to ensure that children are immunized against the this crippling disease and the surveillance is strong, despite the poor infrastructure, extreme poverty, and civil strife of many countries. Since the PolioPlus Program's inception in 1985, more than two billion children have received oral polio vaccine. To date, 210 countries, territories and areas around the world are polio free and 134 of these have been certified. As of June 2007, Rotary has committed more than $633 million to global polio eradication. 2006-07 expenditures: $23.6.   A special thanks go out to all those Rotarians and friends who have participated and/or contributed to these efforts.  Our continued support is still needed, since this crippling disease is not quite eradicated yet.

Polio Fight Gets $200 Million Injection - November 27, 2007

India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, along with the African nation of Nigeria, are the only countries where polio remains stubbornly endemic. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that it was giving $100 million to the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International to try to stamp out the crippling disease, and Rotary, which has already contributed $633 million to the fight, pledged to match the Gateses’ grant. Most of the money will be used for immunization.