Rotary's Global Impact

As members of the world’s first service club organization, Rotarians have consistently put Service Above Self to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvement of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty. In addition to educational programs, which includes the Group Study Exchange (GSE) program, The Rotary Foundation funds and Rotarians worldwide support a wide range of humanitarian projects.

PolioPlus is one of the most far-reaching Rotary humanitarian projects to date. To eradicate polio, Rotarians have mobilized by the hundreds of thousands to ensure that children are immunized against this crippling disease and that surveillance is strong despite the poor infrastructure, extreme poverty, and civil strife of many countries. The remaining active polio cases in four polio-endemic, recently endemic, and high-risk countries, are hoped to be eliminated soon through intensified eradication efforts, including National Immunization Days, poliovirus transmission monitoring, and other activities. Since the PolioPlus program’s inception in 1985, more than two billion children have received the oral polio vaccine though Rotary's partnership with the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control and UNICEF.

Other humanitarian projects focus on hunger, health and literacy issues worldwide. Rotarian are committed to assure safe water supplies to children in the most remote and impoverished regions, empower their parents to become self-sufficient through micro-credit projects, and combat illiteracy worldwide. Although Rotary is not a disaster relief organization, it contributes to those efforts through its ShelterBox program.

January is Rotary Awareness Month.