By Janet Kolepp, Rotary Club of Bethlehem Morning Star, Pennsylvania, USA
When I arrived at the Rotary Zone conference in Winnipeg, I was struck by its hopeful theme: Better Together. It felt like a gathering of shared purpose, where humanitarian impact and global fellowship took center stage.
I know Rotary changes lives. Through clean water, education, health initiatives, and peacebuilding, I have seen how we reach across borders and barriers. I believe service is a path to peace. And yet, I cannot ignore that even within Rotary, not everyone feels they belong. One breakout session — Creating a Rotary Where Everyone Belongs — hit me hard. It asked me to look inward, to examine not just what I do, but who we are. Sometimes, who we are — our identity, our truth — is met not with welcome, but with silence or discomfort.
I wrestle with this: how do I hold together the noble ideals of Rotary alongside the painful truth that even in spaces built for service, belonging is not guaranteed? How do I reconcile the hope of humanitarian work with the heartbreak of human rights violations?
There is not a tidy answer. But maybe that is the point.
For me, belonging is not a slogan — it is a commitment. It is the courage to name what is broken, even in the places I cherish. It is humility to listen, to change, to make room. It is recognizing that peace is not just something we deliver, it is something we must embody.
After the conference, before leaving Winnipeg, I visited the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Walking through its halls was a reckoning. The museum gathers the weight of injustice and resilience into one space. Genocide, exclusion, systemic oppression — layer upon layer of human suffering and resistance. To see it all at once was staggering. I found it hard to breathe under the enormity of it.
I left Winnipeg with a deeper resolve. To keep asking. To keep noticing. To keep making space — for truth, for discomfort, for each other.
Because maybe being better together starts with being braver together.
Janet Kolepp is an assistant public image coordinator in Zone 32, a past governor of District 7430, and has served as an International Assembly facilitation team member in 2024-25 and as a GELS team leader for Zones 28/32 in 2024-25.
https://blog.rotary.org/2026/01/22/creating-a-rotary-where-everyone-belongs/