Message from RAGFP Executive Director Reem Ghunaim:

Hello, Rotarian Action Group for Peace members, peace partners and friends,

I am inspired by the following quote from Paul Harris: “I would like to think that the pioneering days of Rotary have only just begun. There are just as many new things to be done as ever there were. Kaleidoscopic changes are taking place, many of them without our will. Even to hang on to the fringe of this fast-changing world is about all most of us can do. Rotary simply must continue to pioneer or be left in the rear of progress.” 

The United Kingdom remains in our Top 5 membership countries this year due to their ‘smashing’ efforts in Rotarian peacebuilding. Rotarians throughout the United Kingdom always look for new opportunities for peace through service and provide ways to include everyone in one of our world’s oldest Democracies.

RAGFP Board Member Alison Sutherland is current chair of our Peace Education Committee. She wrote an article for The Rotarian Magazine UK that exemplifies all Rotarian peacebuilders. She sat in busy traffic one morning, noticing a group of people outside an old building in her home town of Cardiff, Wales, and recognized an opportunity of Rotarian service. These were refugees seeking asylum and she found a way for Rotary to help them. She assisted Rotarian partnerships that currently integrate many of the 1,000 foreign refugees per month who arrive in Cardiff into their community. The Welsh Refugee Council now refer refugees who wish to integrate into British society to the City of Cardiff Rotaract.

RAGFP member Caroline Millman, (pictured right with Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum), is the Chair of PeaceJam UK. Caroline works with PeaceJam UK to tailor teacher-friendly curricula materials for youth, based on the lives of the Peace Laureates. All of their curricula features global “Call to Action” projects aligned with high-quality service-learning standards and is linked to the One Billion Acts of Peace campaign established by the Peace Laureates. PeaceJam is an international education program for schools and youth groups. It is unique as it is the only educational program working directly with Nobel Peace Laureates. PeaceJam itself has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize seven times. Their aims are to teach and inspire a new generation to be active citizens and agents for change.

India stands alone at #4 on our list of RAGFP membership countries this year because they provide unmatched energy for Rotarian peace action. India has 3,700 Rotary clubs and 146,000 Rotarian members. Rotarians in India join RAGFP to become connected to a global network of peacebuilders and they reach across borders for peace.

RAGFP members in Districts 3011 and 3070 (India) and District 3272 (Pakistan) have joined forces with Rotarians in six other Rotary districts worldwide to build a Peace Park in the disputed border zone between India and Pakistan. The Indus Peace Park Project seeks to promote peace and international cooperation along the border.

The Indus Peace Park Project was conceived in 2015 when a Rotary District 5080 Friendship Exchange group was unable to attend certain events in the region, due to border tensions between India and Pakistan. RAGFP members came together to provide peace action.

The fourth Rotary International President from India, Sushil Kumar Gupta, will begin his term as RI President on July 1st, 2020. “When 1.2 million Rotarians work together, there is no limit to what we can achieve, we can truly change the world,” he says. As a Rotarian for 41 years, serving in the Rotary Club of Delhi Midwest, he wants to increase Rotary’s humanitarian impact as well as the diversity of its membership. Read More

Australia holds steady at #3 this year on our Top 5 membership list. It is the home of Immediate Past RI President Ian Riseley, who hosted six Presidential Peacebuilding Conferences last year. Rotarians in Melbourne became the very first “E-Club” (and the first Rotary Club in Australia) to form a RAGFP Peacebuilder Club in August 2018.

The Rotary E-Club of Melbourne (RECM) is an active RAGFP Peacebuilder Club. They are among the growing numbers of “E-Clubs” around the world within Rotary International. Rotary E-Clubs provide a convenient way for Rotarians to meet online, especially if they are restricted from attending traditional meetings due to work, travel, or other issues.

Melbourne is a city of Rotarian pioneers. The Rotary Club of Melbourne (RCM) was Australia’s very first Rotary Club chartered in 1921 and members of RCM helped District 9800 launch this E-Club five years ago as a means of helping the district adapt to changing needs of Rotarians in the area.

The RECM Peacebuilder Club is on the organizing committee of the Peace Through Service Summit to be held in Melbourne on February 15th, 2019. he conference is part of Rotary’s Victorian Multi-District Conference which starts on the 16th of February. The Summit has high profile speakers including immediate past RI President Ian Riseley, Dr. Edna Adan Ismail, and other world-renowned peacebuilders.  Learn more about this Peacebuilding Conference.

The Right to Housing is the economic, social and cultural human right. This is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ShelterBox’ Rotarian volunteers keep advancing this human right every time they intervene in a humanitarian crisis. Rotarians founded ShelterBox in the UK. ShelterBox remains Rotary’s only relief charity. A third of Rotary’s funding of ShelterBox is donated by grassroots Rotarians and Rotary clubs worldwide. 80% of ShelterBox aid is administered because of man-made conflicts. This emphasizes how Rotarians contribute to creating a world beyond war. ShelterBox Australia and Australian Rotaractors worked alongside Indonesian Rotarians to deliver vital aid to communities devastated by the Lombok earthquake. The earthquake response highlighted how Rotarians build peace. Read More

Canada, the host country of last year’s Rotary International Convention in Toronto, surged into the #2 RAGFP membership spot this year. The influx of RAGFP members in Canada is due to a national “culture of peace” cultivated by Rotarians who form community peace partnerships and alliances throughout their country.

The Rotary Club of Winnipeg is a RAGFP Peacebuilder Club. They formed District 5550/World Peace Partners 13 years ago, and this Rotary/community partnership is now an international standard for all Rotarian peacebuilders.

Rotarian Action Group for Peace Board Member David Newman is leading the World Peace Partners initiative and integrating it into RAGFP’s work. David provides outstanding leadership in developing peacebuilding projects and initiatives in District 5550 that serve as blueprints for Rotarian Peacebuilder Clubs and Peacebuilder Districts worldwide.

Rotarians throughout Canada support Rotary Peace Fellows and the six Rotary Peace Centers globally. They elevate these peace professionals and support them to lead successful peacebuilding efforts in their spheres of influence. Rotary Peace Fellow Eduardo da Costa is a RAGFP member. Eduardo is also a Global Peace Ambassador for the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP).

He is a peace scholar who advises Rotarians in ways to quantify tangible results in all their peacebuilding projects and initiatives. Rotarian Action Group for Peace also supports the IEP in providing all Rotarian peacebuilders with tools designed to codify Rotary’s Peace Area of Focus as measurable and sustainable peace actions. We are proud to support Eduardo in his outstanding work with Rotarians in Canada and worldwide. Read Eduardo’s article published by Rotary International.

Rotarians in America helped keep the birthplace of Rotary International in our #1 membership spot this year. There are now 78 RAGFP Peacebuilder Clubs spread across the continental United States, in Alaska and the Pacific. These Rotarian peacebuilders are actively engaged in promoting positive peace projects, planting Rotary Peace Poles, and creating inclusive platforms for peace.

There are three RAGFP Peacebuilder Clubs in Hawaii. RAGFP Founder Al Jubitz helped install a Rotary Peace Pole with the Rotary Club of Kona Sunrise at the West Hawaii Civic Center. This club represents the energy and momentum RAGFP Peacebuilder Clubs are infusing into Rotarian peacebuilding. Read a flyer RCKS placed in a local newspaper announcing their “official” certification as a RAGFP Peacebuilder Club.

Mahalo Hawaiian peacebuilders!

As “gateway to the Rockies,” the Rotary Club of Boulder is an exemplary RAGFP Peacebuilder Club and the largest club in District 5450. They celebrate 100 years of Rotary service on April 1st, 2019. Many of these outstanding Rotarian peacebuilders are RAGFP members who promote peace throughout the state of Colorado and internationally.

The club formed in 1919 shortly after WWI when four local businessmen walked out of a Lions Club meeting and decided they would rather charter a club in another growing service organization called Rotary. A century later, this Rotary club is now over 200 members strong and Rotarians helped transform this entire region into a thriving center of education and commerce.

RAGFP member Cynda Collins Arsenault serves on the peacebuilder committee of the Rotary Club of Boulder. This visionary Rotarian peacebuilder is also involved in international peacebuilding, working to secure peace in the oceans, on land, and even in the sky. She is Co-Founder and Board Member of One Earth Future (OEF) and the Arsenault Family Foundation. She is also a founder of Our Secure Future (OSF)- Women Make the Difference. These foundations promote positive peace and help provide economic empowerment for women from Colombia to Lake Victoria in Africa.

OSF-Woman Make the Difference offers the Dear World, Move Us Toward Peace campaign showcasing young women’s voices from around the world through letters sharing their personal visions for peace. It teaches girls to grow as negotiators, mediators or peacemakers, by providing the personal space to explore solutions and to understand they have the agency and capacity to be change-makers.

Cynda is co-founder and President of Secure World Foundation (SFW). She demonstrates how Rotarian visionaries solve current conflicts on earth, and seek innovative solutions to potential conflicts, even in outer space. According to the SFW, more than 21,000 pieces of debris larger than 10 cm (4 inches) are being tracked in earth’s orbit.

There are an additional 500,000 pieces of untracked debris less than 1 (cm) endangering more than 1,800 operational satellites. The growing “space industry” and potential “space billboards” only add to the already crowded sphere of earth’s orbit. Just one minor space collision could cause a cascade of failures that might damage or completely disrupt the sustainable use of outer space for all humanity.