By Glenda Dela Cruz, Rotary Club for Global Action
When I returned to the Philippines after living in Canada, I thought I was simply coming home to care for my son.
What I didn’t expect was to find myself on a mission, and that Rotary would help me start over. Through Rotary, service became my path from personal pain to healing, purpose, and community peacebuilding.
I had been adopted and brought to Canada during my preteen years. I became a mother before I felt prepared, survived domestic abuse, and eventually became my son’s caregiver after he developed schizophrenia.
I returned home lost, confused, and filled with uncertainty. After leaving behind the life I had spent years building in Canada, I found myself asking: What can I do now?
Then Rotary came my way.
Service became part of my healing
When I joined Rotary, I did not know what it meant. I simply knew I needed to do something meaningful at a time when my anxiety was high and it felt as though I had nothing left.
Rotary gave me opportunities to connect with people and listen to their stories. Through those encounters, I discovered what else I could give.
I began to understand that service is not only about what we give. Sometimes, service ignites something within us. It certainly did for me.
It began with mothers
In 2022, during my term as president of the Rotary Club of Tiaong-Hiyas, we organized a 12-week health challenge for mothers in our community. At the end, the mothers asked a simple question: “What happens next?” They did not want the connection, encouragement, and sense of belonging to end.
I listened. That question eventually led to the formation of a Rotary Community Corps, Ilaw ng Tahanan, a group of non-Rotarians who work alongside Rotary members and share a commitment to creating positive change in their community.
Ilaw ng Tahanan became more than a community group. It became a circle of women who could learn, laugh, reflect, inspire one another, and grow together.
I watched mothers who were initially quiet begin sharing their stories, encouraging one another, and stepping forward as community leaders. As the mothers found connection, confidence, and belonging, I realized that I was also finding those things alongside them.
Today, these mothers are at the heart of the RCC Peace Center in Tiaong, Quezon, Philippines. The center offers community-based activities that promote emotional literacy, mental well-being, healthy relationships, and peace. We create spaces where mothers, children, and young people can speak honestly, feel heard, and discover their strengths and their worth.
Peace can begin with listening
My experiences as a mother taught me that mental health is not only a health issue. It is also a peace issue.
Conflict does not begin only between countries or groups. It can begin within a person who feels overwhelmed, unseen, or alone. It can grow inside homes when people don’t know how to express what they feel or listen to one another.
In my community, I have seen how unspoken emotions and unmet needs can strain relationships at home. This is why I now see peacebuilding as something deeply personal.
Peace can begin when a mother feels supported instead of judged; a young person feels safe enough to ask for help; a family learns to listen before reacting; a community chooses compassion over silence.
This understanding connects our work with Rotary’s commitment to promoting peace.
My dream for every mother
I dream of communities where no mother believes she must carry everything alone.
A mother can give more fully to her family and community when she also feels seen, heard, supported, and valued.
I want mothers to have spaces where they can breathe, speak, learn, and remember their worth. Asking for support is not weakness. Sometimes, it is the first act of courage.
Rotary keeps me going — not because service takes away every difficulty, but because it reminds me that even our most painful experiences can become pathways toward connection and purpose.
Through service, I continue to find healing and purpose. In many ways, I have found my way home.
How can your Rotary club create a space where people feel seen, heard, supported, and valued? What has helped you heal, and how might your experiences help someone else? Share your comments in the section below.
Glenda Dela Cruz also applies her commitment to peace and wellbeing as a member of The Rotary Foundation Cadre of Technical Advisers. Learn more about partnering with the Cadre to create lasting change in communities.
https://blog.rotary.org/2026/10/13/finding-my-way-home-through-rotary/