[D9640general] [eFlash_Rotary] Digest Number 772

[Garry Krischock]

 Messages In This Digest (2 Messages) 
  1. 1466: UN secretary-general meets with Rotary leaders From: Sunil K Zachariah 

  2. 1467:  Q&A with RI President-elect Dong Kurn Lee From: Sunil K Zachariah 

Messages 
  1. 1466: UN secretary-general meets with Rotary leaders 
Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:04 pm (PST) 
UN secretary-general meets with Rotary leaders

By Susie Ma 

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with Rotary leaders 
and praised Rotarians for their commitment to polio eradication 
during a recent visit to Chicago.

"Rotary International has led a worldwide campaign to wipe out polio. 
Sometime soon, their work will be done. Polio will be history, like 
smallpox," Ban said in an address to the Economic Club of Chicago on 
7 February.

At a private ceremony earlier in the day, Rotary International 
President Wilfrid J. Wilkinson presented Ban with the Rotary 
International Award of Honor in recognition of his support for polio 
eradication and his dedication to furthering peace and cross-cultural 
understanding. Past recipients of this high Rotary honor include Kofi 
Annan, Bill Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Nelson Mandela.

The secretary-general also met with Foundation Trustee Chair Robert 
S. Scott, RI General Secretary Edwin H. Futa, and RI President-elect 
Dong Kurn Lee. Ban and Lee, both South Koreans, are friends.

Rotary's close ties with the UN date back to 1945 when 49 Rotarians 
helped draft the UN charter. Rotary continues to collaborate with the 
UN through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, a partnership 
with the United Nation's Children's Fund, the World Health 
Organization, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Source: Rotary International News
Courtesy: eFlash_Rotary


2 1467:  Q&A with RI President-elect Dong Kurn Lee 
Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:59 pm (PST) 
Q&A with RI President-elect Dong Kurn Lee

RI President-elect Dong Kurn Lee sat down with Vince Aversano, editor 
in chief of The Rotarian, to talk about how he plans to tackle his 
year in office as RI's first Korean president. Get a sneak peek at 
the interview and look for the full story in the March issue of The 
Rotarian . 

[Q] President-elect Lee, what would you hope to accomplish next year 
as president? 

I would like to see progress made in polio, both in terms of meeting 
the Gates [Foundation] challenge grant and in reducing the number of 
polio-endemic countries. I would also like to see child mortality, 
the terrible tragedy of preventable deaths of children, become 
something that every Rotarian is aware of. Every day, 30,000 children 
under the age of five die, most of them from preventable causes like 
measles, malaria, and pneumonia. I want people to realize that every 
day, a disaster of this size is happening. But it is also important 
to remember how much we have already done, and how far we have come. 
Children do not die of smallpox anymore, and soon they will not have 
polio. With the challenge grant from the Gates Foundation, we have a 
real chance of ending polio completely in the next few years. I see 
the work of eradicating polio as a key part of my focus on child 
mortality. 

Many of the projects that Rotarians are already involved in, in the 
areas of water, health and hunger, and literacy, already save the 
lives of countless children every year. I believe that by focusing 
our efforts on decreasing child mortality through work in these three 
emphases, we will be able to make a real difference in the number of 
children who survive to adulthood. 

[Q] What image of Rotary should be projected today? Should the 
emphasis be on business networking potential or on humanitarian 
projects? 

I do not think it is a choice between one and the other. Rotary has 
to be seen as a whole. Rotary was founded as a business networking 
tool, and service came after that. Service is now our primary focus, 
but that does not mean Rotary's role in business should be minimized. 
Rotarians should be in Rotary because they want to give, but we can 
and should also acknowledge the many benefits to Rotary membership. 

[Q] Why do you feel the Rotary Youth Exchange program is so 
important? 

It helps young people comprehend the world better. For young people, 
especially when they are living with host families, it is a kind of 
experience - an immersion experience - that cannot be duplicated. It 
brings rewards that are lifelong and benefits that reach far beyond 
that one individual. 

When I was a young man, I spent two years in California. I was a 
student, and I also worked as a busboy on Fisherman's Wharf in San 
Francisco. You could not imagine anything more different from my home 
village in Korea. Everyone was different, everything was different - 
the food, the people, the language. It completely changed how I saw 
the world, and it formed who I became in later life. I think I would 
still have joined Rotary, but I would not have understood it as 
well. 

[Q] What inspired your choice of Make Dreams Real as the RI theme? 

Part of why Rotary is so exciting for me is that we are able to do 
more through Rotary than we could do alone. We can do more as a club 
than we could as an individual, we can do more as a district than we 
could do as a club, and when you look at all of global Rotary, you 
can really dream big dreams. No one individual or even one 
government, no matter how powerful, could have done what we have done 
in polio eradication. In this year, my dream is that together we will 
be able to save the lives of children. That is my own dream. Part of 
that dream is knowing that children will be able to survive, to grow 
up healthy, to have better chances, to be able to see their own 
dreams become real in their lives. 

Source: Rotary International News
Courtesy: eFlash_Rotary
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://rotary9640.org/pipermail/d9640general_rotary9640.org/attachments/20080213/9267655e/attachment.html