It has been said that for a man to truly understand his present and gain direction for his future then he has to look into the mirror of his past. Today, we will be doing exactly that by holding up the mirror of our predecessors and founding fathers in order to better walk in their shoes and emulate all they intended for this great organization to be. The history of the Rotary club begun on a fine Thursday morning on the 23rd of February 1905 where the founding fathers Paul p. Harris, Gustavus Loehr , Silvester Schiele and Hiram Shoey had their first Rotary meeting. It was held in downtown Chicago, unity building. The association they formed was called Rotary due to its rotational nature of the meetings. Soon the club grew to having over 20000 clubs all over the state by 1925.
The aim of the club was to provide a platform where people from different professions could meet and exchange ideas while networking. As time went by, these professionals saw that they could come together to work towards healing and serving the community around them. And so the mission of the club changed to what it presently is: ‘service above self’ and ‘one profits who serves best’. This having been partly inspired by a speech offered by a Rotarian named Arthur franklin Sheldon in 1911 during the second Rotary convention. Part of the evolution of the club was the induction and inclusion of young adults into service to the community through Rotary activities. This branch is now what is known as the Rotaract.
The first Rotaract club was chartered 52 years ago in 1968 in North Carolina, USA and has since spread to see the involvement and participation of many young people across the globe. Rotaract offers a diversified and intriguing way to serve community while interacting with a lot of other young people. Each Rotaract club gets to manage their own resources and see how best to serve the community around them. What’s exciting is also that the members get to use their own skills and careers to infuse help into their various causes. From polio eradication, alleviating illiteracy, helping out in orphanages and everything in between, there is always a beehive of activities members get to participate in.
In Kenya, the history of Rotary is tied with the arrival of Rotarian John Innes from Leeds after Paul Harris encouraged him to use his upcoming visit as a way to spread Rotary into east Africa. John approached the then mayor, Mr. Charles Udall who was impressed by the idea of having professionals in different fields interact and exchange ideas. Soon after, they had a luncheon with twelve prominent citizens at the time. Amidst cocktails and shrimps, there was the ushering of the Rotary club into East Africa. The mayor was the first president of the club in 1930. The club received its own charter a year later and grew strength from strength and we can attribute a majority of Rotary clubs in east Africa as having been born from the Rotary club of Nairobi. Notable members at the time included Colonel Turner, Reverend Dean Wright and Lord Delamere who together with Eernest Beasley Gill founded Unga limited.
The history of the Rotaract club does not end there but continues to be formed though each members efforts at contributing towards society. In a time when most people are engulfed in their own need and blinded to that of the society around them, what a revolutionary act it is to serve above self. Come join us today as we make history for future generations.
Lovely article.
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