The Rotary Foundation is the Rotary movement's main charity, giving around £140 million (USD 227m) in Rotary year 2007/8 to educational, cultural and humanitarian programmes which promote international understanding.
More information about The Rotary Foundation is available by visiting the Foundation pages at Rotary International's website.
PolioPlus Since the inception of this programme in 1985, Rotary has contributed many millions of pounds to pay for the immunization of over 2 billion children in 122 different countries. Rotary's target is the complete eradication of this crippling disease.
We have also responded to the Bill & Melinda Gates challenge to contribute an additional $1,000 per year for the next three years. The money raised by Rotary clubs world-wide in this challenge will be matched by Bill Gates in a final push to eradicate polio.
Health, Hunger and Humanity Grants fund large-scale projects over one to three years that enhance health, help alleviate hunger or improve human development. Since 1978, 234 major projects in 61 countries have been funded. In addition, further grants have been awarded to support the planning and preparation of the major projects.
Matching Grants provide matching funds for international service projects organised by Rotary clubs and districts. In 1999-2000 almost two thousand grants were awarded to new projects in 115 countries. In addition funding was awarded to approved projects in countries where Rotary clubs were unable to provide significant support and oversight and to individual Rotarians volunteering their services in a country other than their own.
In 2004, here in Andover, on behalf of four European Clubs we successfully applied for a Matching Grant to fund our Gulu project . Unfortunately however this particular project had to be terminated in 2008 due to local circumstances on the ground.
Rotary Peace Programmes contribute to the cost of international conferences aimed at conflict resolution and ways of enhancing the search for peace.
Through Ambassadorial Scholarships, the Rotary Foundation sponsors one of the largest and most international scholarship programmes in the world.
Group Study Exchanges enable teams of non-Rotarians from a variety of vocations to travel to another country/rotary district for educational and cultural development.
In Andover, in addition to contributing substantial funding for the above purposes, we have contributed funds to the Abrizo Warboys Children's Orphanage in Brazil and hosted visiting Group Study Exchange Teams from Malaysia, Montana (USA), Poona (India), Washington State & British Columbia (USA & Canada)and most recently Argentina, with our own team returning from there in June 2009.
Thank you all for your support for our own Charity – The Rotary Foundation – once again this year.
$100 per Member Contribution to The Rotary Foundation
Once again we are making our full $100 per member contribution. Whilst it may seem routine, it is not. Without the support of Clubs RI Programmes such as Polio Plus, Health Hunger and Humanity (3H) projects, Matching Grants, Group Study Exchange, Rotary Peace Scholars and the like could not continue. This is the first year for a while we as a Club have not benefited by receiving some of our contributions back in the form of GSE involvement or District Simplified Grants, but it is in our hands to put that right.
Purple Crocus Campaign and Thanks for Life
The Club has been heavily involved in the 'End Polio Now' campaign. We have already completed the asked for contribution of $175 per member as a part of the RI campaign to reach The Gates Foundation challenge of $200M for RI by July 2012. Small sums of money are still coming in but for our Club the money is only part of the picture.
We decided to use RIBI's Crocus planting scheme part of the 'Thanks for Life' as the opportunity to say “Thanks for Life” to the people, and especially the schools, of the Andover area for supporting Rotary projects so generously and enabling us to cause so many people all over the world to echo these words.
Last October some 12,000 purple crocuses were planted in and around Andover as part of Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland's “Thanks for Life” campaign.
With the assistance of eleven schools, the active support of Test Valley Borough Council, and the generous sponsorship of Stannah Stairlifts, we planted crocuses at eighteen sites and the results were splendid.
Even more splendid was the support of some 15 Club members in liaising with schools and planting crocuses.
When the flowers were in bloom the same Rotarians, ably assisted by the Mayor of Test Valley (who had Polio as a child), gave talks at school assemblies about Rotary's campaign to “End Polio Now”. The talks were suitable for the younger children, but the more senior ones had a Conference of their own thanks to the vision and hard work of our Youth Opportunities Chairman.
It was quite a complicated project which was well worth the effort. We had good publicity from both Andover Sound and The Andover Advertiser and now have better contacts with many of the local schools and of course our local Council without whom there would not have been a project.
Hopefully there will be a legacy for us to make use of in years to come.
Thanks again for all your support in making Foundation a little more worthwhile.
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