Rotary International is celebrating 100 years of existence in India this year. March 27 will mark six years of the polio-free status of India, achieved with the support of Rotary International. Rotary International President Mark Maloney was in India in February to attend the centennial celebrations in Kolkata. Later he interacted exclusively with THE WEEK.
Here are excerpts:
Q. Rotary has completed 100 years in India? What has been the greatest achievement and point of satisfaction? How Rotary grew stronger in India?
Yes, 2020 marks 100 years of Rotary in India, and as I think back to the Rotary Club of Kolkata—the first Rotary club in South Asia—I am inspired by our impact and by the value we’ve brought to every member.
Rotary connects us to our communities, to professional opportunities and to the people who need our help. We come to Rotary to do good for others; but over time, we all realize the good that Rotary does for each of us as Rotary allows us to harness our talents to positively impact our communities and the world. Through volunteering, we make lifelong friendships that transcend political, cultural and generational boundaries and foster global understanding and respect.
One of our greatest achievements remains polio-free India. As the organization that first envisioned a polio-free world, Rotary and its members have raised over $2.1 billion to fight polio, and have led global efforts to raise awareness and advocate with governments in support of a polio-free world. In India, our members serve as volunteer vaccinators and work with local leaders to ensure every child is protected. With our partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we look forward to marking India’s sixth anniversary as a polio-free country on March 27, 2020.
Q. Where do you see Rotary in India after another decade, given the fact that there has been a 56% growth in membership during the past decade?
With about 600 million people, more than half the population of India, under 25 years old — we are committed to providing a platform for new generations to channel their talents into making a difference.
We’re exploring alternative models and ways for people to engage with Rotary. These models could take a variety of forms, from events to service opportunities to online engagement.
We need young and diverse leaders who can take on challenges and make an immediate impact through Rotary, the original social network — well before anyone ever heard of LinkedIn or Facebook — which is connecting leaders around the world for good.
Q. What is the biggest focus of Rotary vis a vis India in the near future?
Shekhar Mehta of Kolkata will become the fourth Rotary International President from India on July 1, 2021, and we expect he will steer us toward a bright future as he broadly focuses on driving membership and impact in India, and across the world.
As Rotary led the effort to unite its partners in a global effort to end polio in India, Mehta will focus on increasing Rotary’s impact by implementing and expanding partnerships with organizations that specialize in promoting peace; fighting disease; providing clean water, sanitation and hygiene; saving mothers and children; supporting education and growing local economies.
Q. Rotary helped polio elimination in India and now there is a plan to support other immunisation goals like Measles and Rubella elimination? Please elaborate on the support plan.
Polio is on the verge of becoming the second human disease in history to be eradicated, and Rotary is committed to delivering our promise of a polio-free world.
With the infrastructure Rotary and our partners developed to protect children from polio, we have built a lasting global health legacy that is now used to protect millions of children from other diseases. Rotary members in India are partnering with the government to leverage the strategies and networks from the polio eradication initiative to support routine immunization, as well as the elimination of measles and rubella.
Q. Is there also plan to support tuberculosis elimination that India plans by 2025?
While ending polio remains our top priority, I am confident that Rotary members in India will find creative solutions and apply their problem-solving abilities to some of our toughest challenges, from economic inequality to conflict resolution to fighting disease.
Q. Rotary, among other things, focuses on sanitation and hygiene, particularly for women and girls. Is there any specific plan or programme to support adolescent health and menstrual hygiene in India —crucial for the eradication of malnutrition and child and maternal mortality?
In some parts of the world, women and children collectively spend hundreds of thousands of hours each day retrieving water. It is estimated that annually, about 37.7 million Indians are affected by waterborne diseases. Out of this, 1.5 million children are estimated to die of gearhead alone.
We know that when we improve access to clean water, we free time for children to attend school, and parents to work or take better care of their families. So Rotary has developed projects in the area of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene — known by the common acronym WASH. Our goal is to provide sustainable WASH solutions that can dramatically improve school attendance and basic education and literacy levels.
Rotary has undertaken a Pan-India focused program on WASH in Schools to create an environment that promotes school attendance and greater learning by providing access to safe water, sanitation facilities, and hygiene education in schools. Progress has been made on three fronts including the installation of group handwashing stations; behavioural change in hygiene and sanitation; and removing the taboo on talking about the importance of menstrual hygiene.
Q. How do you look at India's contribution to overall Rotary purpose and global goals?
With more than 150,000 dedicated Rotary members across 4,000 clubs, Rotary in India now contributes to nearly one-third of Rotary’s global membership growth. The Rotary Foundation of India supports an array of local and international service initiatives touching on education, public health, sanitation and hygiene, and much more to the tune of nearly $23 million.
Q. Please elaborate on the economic impact (of up to $850 million globally) of Rotarian voluntary activities.
Each act of service can sometimes seem insignificant, in the context of all the need we have in the world. But when you multiply all of those acts by all of those Rotary members, over all of those years—and then you add them together, with all of the other tens of thousands of clubs around the world, throughout their histories—you start to realize the magnitude of our collective impact.
As part of Rotary’s new strategic plan to increase our impact and measure our success across our programs, we worked with Johns Hopkins University to conduct an international survey estimating the value of Rotary club members’ service hours.
The findings were staggering, and not only did the results reveal that Rotary members give more than 47 million hours of volunteer service a year, but the survey also revealed that if communities had to pay for the services Rotary volunteers provide, it would cost them around $850 million a year.
