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WHAT IS ROTARY?
Rotary is a universal humanistic association of offering services.
Its members are professionals and businessmen who offer voluntarily
their time and services to help other fellow men in their communities
and all over the world.
THE AIM OF ROTARY
The aim of Rotary is to encourage and promote the ideal of offering
services, being a base of every remarkable effort, and especially
to encourage and promote :
- The development of acquaintance, as a chance to offer.
- The highly moral principles in businesses and occupations,
the recognition of the value of every useful activity and
the praise of the occupation of each Rotarian, as a chance
to offer to the society.
- The application of the ideal of offering services in
the personal, professional and social life of each Rotarian.
- The promotion of international sympathy, of good will
and peace through the universal fraternization of businessmen
and professionals, united by the idea of offering services.
HISTORY
Rotary was founded in 23rd February 1905, at Chicago, U.S.A.,
by the lawyer Paul Harris and three of his friends.Today it
is expanded in 165 countries with more than 1,2 million members,
which belong to more than 32.000 Rotarian Clubs. These clubs
compose 530 administrative Regions all over the world. Rotary
was expanded in Greece in 1928 with the foundation of R.C. of
Athens. The Rotarian Clubs of Greece belong to the 2470 and
2480 regions of R.I. with more than 3.000 members.
NAME - EMBLEM
The name Rotary was derived due to this event : The first meetings
of Rotarians have taken place in the working place of each member
in rotation. This function in english is described by the word
"Rotation" and thus, the name of the foundation "Rotary"
was invented. The emblem of Rotary is a cog wheel, which is
consisted of 6 spokes, 24 teeth and the pin in its centre. The
official colours of Rotary are two : blue, which symbolizes
the international character of the association and gold, which
symbolizes the quality and high level of its activities.
DUTIES - OBLIGATIONS AND BENEFITS
Rotary Clubs hold a meeting each week on a given day, time and
place to rejoice the fraternization, to discuss about interesting
subjects and to plan and materialise programs of service offerings
of local and global interest. Rotarians are men or women, professionals
or businessmen, who inhabit or work at the region of due Club
or in neighbouring areas. A Rotarian has the duty and obligation
to be consistent to his Club in terms of cash and to be present
in at least 60% of his Club's meetings. Simultaneously, he has
the right to take part in any exhibition of another Club around
the world he desires.
RESTRICTIONS
Rotary as a universal association has members of every religian
and dogma, as well as of different political beliefs. Thus Rotary
does not allow religious and political converstations during
its exhibitions. But Rotary respects the faith of each member
and believes unconditionally to the the infinite value of the
faith in God and to the conscious fulfillment of the religious
duties of its members. At the same time, Rotarians should have
national conscience, should be lawful according to the respective
laws and should love their country.
OPERATION
Rotary ranks its work in 4 axes of operation and activities,
which are called Avenues of Service.
These are :
- Internal Action, the objective of which is the internal
function of the Club,
- Professional Action, the objective of which is the promotion
of highly moral values during the business and professional
life of Rotarians,
- Communal Action, the objective of which is the identification
of the communal needs and their fulfillment with programs
of offering services,
- Universal Action, the objective of which is the promotion
of international sympathy, of peace and good will among
all people.
PROGRAMS
Rotary plans and materialises programs of offering services
in point of solution of youth's problems, fighting illiteracy,
professional orientation, famine relief, improvement of life
conditions, elimination of diseases, restitution from disasters,
protection of natural environment, nursing of suffering fellow
citizens, help for people with special needs, and many more.
ROTARIAN FOUNDATION
Rotary founded the Rotarian Foundation in 1917, through which
the great educational and humanistic programs of offering services
are materialised, programs as : the program Polio-plus, for
the elimination of poliomyelitis and other infantile diseases
from our planet, the Ambassador Scholarships program, the biggest
privately funded program of international scholarships all over
the world, the program of Teams Study Exchange, for young people
to get acquainted to other countries, cultures and to exchange
opinions with their colleagues who practice the same occupation,
sponsorships to university professors to teach in developing
countries, implementation of big international humanistic and
charitable programs for famine, health, humanism and solution
of collisions to promote peace.
COLLABORATIONS
Rotary is official advisor of U.N. in terms of humanistic and
educational issues. It collaborates with granted international
associations, as : UNICEF, UNESCO, Universal Organization of
Health, many Foundations and media.
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