November is Rotary Foundation Month.
We watch as short presentation by aid to the RI President Bryn Stiles from D7010.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTkICTe8Y0Y&t=761s
Rotary Bryn talks about how we each follow our own journey to learn about the Rotary Foundation. He encourages us all to keep learning.
He shared about the Foundation Programs that cover a wide range of humanitarian programs.
The Rotary Foundation was started in 1917, but first the first official program wasn't until 1947 and that was international scholarships. Programs have been created from ideas of Rotarians, several Rotarians and / or clubs.
One of the most familiar Foundation program is the grants (Global Grants and District Grants).
District Grants allow Rotarians to spend dollars in their local communities.
Before Global Grants they were called matching grants. Early on these projects were small and not sustainable. So RI decided to go big.
Since 2017 Canadian Clubs have done over 475 global grants with value over $40M US dollars with $15M Foundation dollars. D7070 carried out 27 of the 475 projects with total value over $2M US.
Peace Centres develop leaders. They were started in 2002. There are 5 two year Masters programs and 2 short term (one year) certificate programs. The graduates become catalysts for change. We now have 1400 graduates working in 150 countries in various roles. This year we had 850 candidates for about 150 spots. These are fully funding programs.
Polio eradication is another of the major Foundation programs. In 2021 there has only been one wild polio case in Pakistan and Afghanistan and none since. Since 1988 we have vaccinated almost 3 billion children. Rotary itself has donated over 2.2 billion dollars since the program began. Each year we immunize 450 million children every year.
During this COVID pandemic, Rotary opened our resources from knowledge of how to deal with Polio virus to fight the COVID virus in 50 countries.
All of these programs allow Rotarians to take action.