North Raleigh Rotary - International Service

Our Club participated in the District Rotary Against Hunger project "Million Meals Campaign", and bagged approximately 40,000 freeze dried meals for shipment to Africa. There were approximately 150 volunteers that participated.

We are a founder of a Rotary program that has provided books and computers for children since 1998. In addition to financial support, several of our members have traveled to Guatemala to distribute books and learning materials. They have immersed themselves in the rich culture and traditions of this small Central American country. Support for this effective program has grown throughout the United States and Rotarians have now contributed over $700,000 to this project.

Our club has initiated a project in Guatemala whereby loans of averaging $250 help entrepreneurs build small businesses to support their families. We partner with a Rotary club in Guatemala City and Enterprise Mentors International to provide business skills training, counseling and mentoring to help these talented Guatemalans help themselves. Borrowers repay 95% of the loans and the money is loaned again to help another family.

The Group Study Exchange (GSE) program is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for young business and professional men and women between the ages of 25 and 40 and in the early years of their professional lives. The program provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits between paired areas in different countries. For four to six weeks, team members experience the host country's institutions and ways of life, observe their own vocations as practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships, and exchange ideas.

For each team member, The Rotary Foundation provides the most economical round-trip air ticket between the home and host countries. Local Rotarians in the host area provide for meals, lodging, and group travel within their district. Our GSE Committee plans for our club’s participation in hosting the visiting team when they are in North Raleigh.

RCNR has been very active in past Group Study Exchanges sponsored by our district. Members of RCNR have hosted members of visiting teams from The Netherlands, West Germany, India, Turkey, Australia, Chile, Denmark, and South Korea during past years.

The photographs are of the 2007 GSE Team from France with Rotarian Fritz Hunsel.

The Rotary Foundation has partnered with six leading universiies around the world to establish the Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace and conflict resolution. One of the centers is the Duke-UNC Rotary Center that is jointly managed by the Duke Center for International Development and the Center for Global Initiatives at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Each year, Rotary will select up to 60 fellows to study at one of the six Rotary Centers worldwide. The selected Rotary Wold Peace Fellows will begin master's level degree programs in fileds related to conflict resolution, peace studies and international relations.

At the Duke-UNC Center the Fellows will be enrolled either in Duke's Program in International Development Policy, or in UNC's master's programs under various relevant departments. Rotary World Peace Fellows follow an interdisciplinary program consisting of their primary filed of studies, in areas usuch as international development policy, international education, health or political science, and the peace and conflict managment field with emphasis on confict prevention, international cooperation and democracy building.

The keynote address for the 2007 Duke-UNC Rotary World Peace Fellows Conference Program was presented by Dr. Inder Sud, Adjunct Professor of the Practice of International Affairs, George Washington University and Former Director for the Middle East at the World Bank (far left photo).

Presenters were: Nidhi Khosla from India and Martin Kunik from Argentina (center photo); and Ana Salazar and David Chick, both from Australia (far right photo).

Our Club’s Centennial project celebrates Rotary International’s 100th Birthday. We have purchased and restored an ambulance that for years served Raleigh Community Hospital. The ambulance is now destined for Guatemala! A doctor in rural Guatemala has told us she has the skills necessary to serve many of the villages in her region but most of her sick patients can not reach her. An ambulance outfitted with life-saving equipment was only a dream until our Rotary Club got involved this year.

Rotary International coordinates 7000 student exchanges each year in 80 countries around the world. Our club has sponsored adventurous local high school students interested in cultural immersion to live with families in Chile and Argentina while we have hosted foreign students from Japan, Chile and Argentina.

Tommy Iwan is our exchange student from Argentina for 2006-2007. He lived with 3 different families during his stay in Raleigh. He attends Sanderson High School and earned a varsity letter on the track team. This young Argentinian has enjoyed making American friends and his enthusiasm for life and adventure is inspiring. Tommy will return home for college and a career using his excellent skills! He has been a wonderful ambassador for Argentina.

The Rotary Foundation's oldest and best-known program is The Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarships. Since 1947 more than 30,000 men and women from 100 nations have studied abroad under its auspices. Today it is the world's largest privately funded international scholarship program. More than 1,100 scholarships were awarded for study in 2002-03. Through grants totaling approximately US$26 million, recipients from some 69 countries studied in more than 64 nations.

The purpose of the Ambassadorial Scholarships program is to further international understanding and friendly relations among people of different countries. While abroad, scholars serve as ambassadors of goodwill to the people of the host country and give presentations about their homelands to Rotary clubs and other groups. Upon returning home, scholars share with Rotarians and others the experiences that led to greater understanding of their host countries. These highly competitive scholarships are awarded to outstanding university students for one academic year of

study in another country. These scholarships are worth up to $25,000 and cover round-trip transportation between the scholar's home and the study institution, room and board at the institution, and academic fees, including an amount for books. RCNR has been the most active club in our district in sponsoring young scholars for these scholarships.

Richard Luce, RI Ambassadorial Scholar 2003-2004 will be studying at Cambridge University in a joint program coordinated by the School of Veterinary Medicine and the Animal Health Trust located in nearby Newmarket, England. The focus of the program is veterinary epidemiology, which entails studying disease distribution in animal populations. Specifically, he will be studying infectious diseases in the British horse population. However, veterinary epidemiology is increasingly important as emerging human diseases such as influenza and SARS have a link with animal hosts.

Kate Barger, DVM - Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar (2002-2003- Mexico)

Kate was enrolled at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), College of Veterinary Medicine in a one-year post-graduate Avian Medicine & Production Specialty Program.

In addition to the intensive veterinary and production medicine coursework, Kate worked as an intern with several poultry companies in Chiapas, Monterrey and Queretaro, Mexico. She also enjoyed meeting Rotarians and other Ambassadorial Students throughout the country and even had the honor to eat breakfast at a Rotary Mexico City District meeting with former World RI President, Frank Devlyn.

Kate is now employed as a poultry veterinarian with Cobb-Vantress, Inc. in Arkansas and uses her Spanish language skills, experiences, and contacts gained in Mexico on a daily basis in her current position as US Export Manager.

A new type of scholarship is now available to men and women in the Raleigh area who could do their job better if they knew Spanish. Perhaps a policeman or fireman or civic worker you know would be interested in three months of intensive language study and cultural immersion in a Latin American country. This scholarship pays for tuition and homestay expenses, including transportation, up to a maximum of $12,000.. The application is available for download at www.Rotary.org and is the same application used for Ambassadorial Scholars.

The following member volunteers help to make our International Service very successful: