Category Archives: Promoting peace

Empowering girls in Mexico

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Sofia Brega founder of Activators de Paz Cuidad Juarez
Sofia Brega founded Activators de Paz Ciudad Juárez, a group that trains other agents of change and develops Positive Peace content for schools.

By Sofía Brega, Rotary Positive Peace Activator and member of the Rotaract Club of Juárez Centro, Chihuahua, Mexico.

Growing up in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, I always knew I wanted to work on girl empowerment and the rights of women. I wanted to be an activist for women’s rights, and learned about Girl Up, an organization that strives to advance opportunities for girls to be leaders. It’s a club-based initiative that supports projects that focus on women’s rights and builds awareness of current challenges for women in Mexico and elsewhere.

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Rotary members behind International Day of Peace

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By David Wick, President, Rotary E-Club of World Peace

International Day of Peace poster
International Day of Peace poster

As members of the Rotary E-Club of World Peace, we will be joining other members and people around the world in participating in the United Nations International Day of Peace on 21 September. It is fitting for us to do so and follow Rotary International President Shekhar Mehta in focusing on “Girls Empowerment and Peace” as a strategy to achieve our common goal. It’s also fitting because several of our members have been promoters of a Peace Day from the very beginning.

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Rotary Peace Fellow reflects on Afghanistan, helping others in crisis

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Kiran Sirah Singh at the International Storyelling Center in Jonesborough, Tennessee, USA.

By Kiran Singh Sirah, a 2011-13 Rotary Peace Fellow and president of the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, Tennessee, USA

The news coming out of Afghanistan has been painful to watch. So many of these images of suffering — the cargo plane filled with refugees, and especially the image of the baby being passed over barbed wire to a soldier — reminded me of my own family’s experience as refugees. Forty-nine years ago, they were forced to flee their home in Uganda along with 50,000 others, when a murderous dictator threatened them with genocide.

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What the latest IEP report says about world peace

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By Michael Collins, Executive Director Americas, Institute for Economics and Peace

In June, the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) released its 15th annual Global Peace Index, one of the leading measures of peacefulness globally. Since 2017, the IEP and Rotary have been in a strategic partnership, providing members with new tools to effectively build peace in communities around the world. It has been my pleasure to work with Rotary members as I have been involved in the process of creating a number of global peace indexes.

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Event celebrates 75 years of Rotary and UN

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By Mary Eileen Shackleton, 2020-21 governor of District 7230 and multi-district conference convener

I was thrilled to be at the 2020 International Assembly when then Rotary International President-Elect Holger Knaack revealed his presidential theme, “Rotary Opens Opportunities.” Knaack gave those present a small puzzle based upon his theme as a memento. Little did I realize that it would later lead to an epiphany.

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Rotary’s diplomats open opportunities around the world – virtually

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By Judith Diment, Dean of the Rotary Representative Network

Judith Diment

We are well into this Rotary year and what a year it has been for the Rotary Representatives to the United Nations and other international organizations! As Rotary’s “ambassadors” to 22 UN and key agencies, our work normally is to meet strategic personnel and develop relationships that are conducive to working together on Rotary’s areas of focus. This is not an easy task in the midst of a pandemic. Like all Rotarians, we have had to adapt to doing things differently through virtual meetings – it’s diplomacy via the internet!

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Rotary Peace Fellow sheds light on minorities in Japan

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Farrah Hasnain and her friends at the Hamamatsu Festival.

Farrah Hasnain

By Farrah Hasnain

My aim is to change my students’ perception of the U.S. There is a hegemony of whiteness in English language teaching, and I want to represent how diverse and multifaceted the American identity truly is.”

When I wrote this to enter The JET Program as a high school English teacher in 2014, I was not aware of how much this would impact my life in Japan. As I began to crack open textbooks, wake up sleepy students, and navigate the enigma that was the old-school Japanese copy machine, I slowly built a consciousness for the parallels that thrived in the rice fields and smoky factories of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka. Continue reading →

Becoming a champion for Syrian youth

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Champion School students fix a soccer goal and clean up a practice field.

Muyi Yang

Muyi Yang, Rotary Peace Fellow, Uppsala University, 2019-21

If you told me ten years ago that I would be running a non-profit school in a post-conflict country, I would have laughed out loud. At the time, I was working as a business representative for a commodity trading company, visiting clients and inspecting their coal mines.

Visiting one client, colleagues and I found several unbelievably young workers at several mines. Some of them looked even under 10 years old. The client admitted to us that the workers were indeed below the legal age to be working in the mines, but they were keeping it secret because, “what else can we do?” Continue reading →

Top 10 ways to be a peacebuilder in the new year

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A peace mural in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The mural is part of a project initiated in 2017 by Yesenia Uribe Rochel, of the Rotary and Rotaract Clubs of Juarez Emprende, which she helped to found in 2019. The project is designed to promote leadership, open minds, and develop resiliency in the community.

By Fergal McCarthy, Peace Programs Manager

Many people use the end of one year to reflect on things they would like to accomplish in the coming year. What better resolution than to sow the seeds of peace in 2021?

Peace underscores much of the work that Rotary members do in improving their communities around the world. Rotary’s peacebuilding initiatives seek to create environments where lasting peace is possible. Continue reading →

Why I Raise for Rotary: Doing Good with the World Fund

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Trustee Brenda Cressey

By Brenda Cressey, Trustee and Rotary Member of South Portland-Cape Elizabeth, Maine, USA

Several years ago, my husband and I had the opportunity to take part in a multi-project mission with more than 100 Rotarians, spouses, Rotaractors and even a few new Rotarians from Rotary District 5280. We flew to Panama to visit project sites, perform cataract surgeries, and deliver wheelchairs.

There were several “Rotary moments” on that trip, but the truly unforgettable moment for me was when a grandfather, having no legs, was presented with the gift of mobility in the form of a bright red wheelchair. Continue reading →