Ella Lacy. 1 June 2019, Hamburg, Germany. Ella Phillips Lacey, a member of the Rotary Club of Carbondale, Illinois, USA, as told to Jenny Llakmani. Photos by Monika Lozinska “I was a professor at Southern Illinois University’s school of medicine for 22 years. My Ph.D. is in health education. At the end of 1994, I…

Deli Levi-Jensen. 1 June 2019, Hamburg, Germany. Deli Levi-Jensen, Rotary Club of Herning International, Denmark as told to Diana Schoberg. Photos by Monika Lozinska “After I moved from Israel to Denmark, my life felt like it was missing something. I was successful at what I was doing. I have a great family and a lot…

Eduardo Rodrigues da Costa, Rotary Peace Fellow 2010-12; Global Grant Scholar at University of Manitoba, Canada, as told to Diana Schoberg. Photos by Monika Lozinska “I was the first Rotary Peace Fellow from the Brazilian Amazon. The Amazon rainforest has a number of conflicts right now related to development, deforestation, and local indigenous people. I…

Working with your sponsoring Rotary club is critical for a Rotaract Club’s success. Here, Austrian Rotaractors build homes for those affected by the war in Bosnia as part of an intergenerational project. Photo by Stefan Fürtbauer © Rotary International. All Rights Reserved. By Lauren Smyser, president, Rotaract Club of Treasure Valley, Boise, Idaho, USA Last…

Joe Otin By Joe Otin, governor-elect of Rotary District 9212 (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Sudan) I gravitate naturally to statistics despite the negative feelings some people have about them. I think that information is the fuel that our world runs on and without it our systems will sputter, stall, and shut down. That is because…

Alison Frye at the District 6600 conference in May By Alison Frye, president of the Rotary Club of Perrysburg, Ohio, USA Back in December, the cover of The Rotarian featured a picture of RI President Barry Rassin and his wife, Esther, with a flock of flamingos. The cover received a lot of love on social…

Capture the Moment in Hamburg, Germany, 1-5 June. Whether you’ll be attending the 2019 Rotary International Convention in Hamburg, Germany, from 1 to 5 June, or you simply want to keep up with everything that’s happening there, you can find all the latest news on riconvention.org and social media using #Rotary19. Every day, the Convention…

Cherry blossoms line the main entrance to ICU in March. By Lorraine Hayman, incoming Rotary Peace Fellow at International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan, 2019-21 This summer, I will join the 18th class of Rotary Peace Fellows at International Christian University. Here are my top ten reasons for applying to ICU: Cultural immersion: ICU is…

Rick Olson visits with children in Tanzania. By Rick Olson, Rotary Club of Prior Lake, Minnesota, USA Climate change is an impersonal, ambiguous term, which denotes negative impact on people around the world. But on a recent trip to Tanzania in Africa I met some of the innocents who will be most affected by the…