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What
is Rotary?
Rotary is an organization
of business and professional leaders united worldwide who provide
humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations,
and help build goodwill and peace in the world. In more than 160
countries worldwide, approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more
than 30,000 Rotary clubs.
Rotary
club membership represents a cross-section of the community's
business and professional men and women. The world's Rotary clubs
meet weekly and are nonpolitical, nonreligious, and open to all
cultures, races, and creeds.
The main objective of Rotary is service, in the community, in the
workplace, and throughout the world. Rotarians develop community
service projects that address many of today's most critical issues,
such as children at risk, poverty and hunger, the environment,
illiteracy, and violence. They also support programs for
youth, educational opportunities and international exchanges for
students, teachers, and other professionals, and vocational and
career development. The Rotary motto is Service Above Self.
Although Rotary
clubs develop autonomous service programs, all Rotarians worldwide are
united in a campaign for the global eradication of polio. In the
1980s, Rotarians raised US$240 million to immunize the children of
the world; by 2005, Rotary's centenary year and the target date
for the certification of a polio-free world, the PolioPlus program
will have contributed US$500 million to this cause. In addition, Rotary
has provided an army of volunteers to promote and assist at
national immunization days in polio-endemic countries around
the world.
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