R.I. President.s appeal to Rotarians

Dear Fellow Rotarians,

The beginning of the Rotary year is always an exciting time, with new Club and District Officers, a new Theme to work with and a renewed sense of purpose for our service projects. The beginning of this particular Rotary year is, of course, especially exciting for me as I look forward to meeting Rotarians throughout the world and seeing at first hand the many remarkable projects you are carrying out.

As part of a long-standing tradition for R.I. Presidents, Lee addressed members of the Rotary Club of Chicago, the birthplace of Rotary, as one of his first official acts on July 1.

On the first day of his term as Rotary International President, Dong Kurn Lee stressed that a diverse Rotary was a strong Rotary.

He emphasised the need to bring in new leadership to take over from the old as part of the 2008-09 R.I. Theme Make Dreams Real.

.Every Rotarian that we bring into our Clubs helps to Make Dreams Real,. he said to a packed secondfloor room in the elegant Union League Club in downtown Chicago. .Every single one is another pair of hands and another mind and another heart to do Rotary.s work..

He called on every District to increase membership by ten percent and to add two Clubs during this Rotary year.

.If we do not bring in younger members, we will miss out on a great deal of energy and expertise. And we will not be training a new generation of members to become Club Presidents, District Governors and senior R.I. leaders in the years to come..

Lee said the membership of a healthy Rotary Club was made up of men and women of different ages, vocations, professions, skills and talents. A Club that was not diversified was less able to conduct ambitious projects and had a narrower range of resources.

Chicago Club member Ruth Ann Watkins said it was fitting for the new R.I. President to begin his year at the Club. .Rotary started here. It carries historical significance and continues our focus on the future,. she added.

Club President Arol Augsburger, who was inducted during the meeting, said Lee.s remarks had hit all the right notes. He also praised Lee.s Theme choice: .We reach a much broader audience and it broadens our sphere of influence to promote diversity..

In planning how your Club and each one of you can Make Dreams Real this year, I ask you to consider the millions of children who never even have the chance to dream. Every day, more than 26,000 children under the age of five die from preventable causes. As appalling as that number is, it is a decrease from the figure of 30,000 that first caught my attention and spurred me to bring this matter of grave concern to Rotarians.

UNICEF.s State of the World.s Children 2008 report states that .by 2006, the most recent year for which firm estimates are available, the annual number of child deaths globally fell below 10 million, to 9.7 million, for the first time since records began..

I would guess that some of the improvement in child survival rates can be directly attributed to Rotary projects that have been successfully addressing problems related to health, hunger, water and literacy for a number of years now. So I asked myself: .What would happen if 1.2 million Rotarians focused their service efforts on keeping even more children alive?.

I think we already know some of the answers. If Rotarians provide insecticide-treated bed nets, fewer children will succumb to malaria. If we dig wells and address sanitation problems, more children will have clean water to drink and more hygienic surroundings. And if Rotary Clubs carry out effective nutrition projects, we can save some of the almost five million children who die each year from under-nourishment.

UNICEF estimates that fully twothirds of the 9.7 million deaths in 2006 were preventable. With Rotarians working to provide vaccines, oral rehydration therapies, accessible health care for mothers and newborns, and other relatively simple interventions, I am confident that many more babies will not only survive but go on to live healthy, productive lives. Let.s Make Dreams Real by giving these children the chance to grow up and have dreams of their own.

Dong Kurn (D.K.) Lee President,
Rotary International,
2008-09