Rotary Foundation scholarships

Rotary International was founded in 1902 by Paul Harris in the United States. With 1.2 million Rotarians belonging to more than 32,000 clubs worldwide, Rotary is the oldest international club to provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

Rotary International, through the Rotary Foundation, works towards the elimination of poverty, environmental conservation, food security, health care and education, mediation and conflict resolution, world peace and understanding.

Some of Rotary Foundation's programmes include:

Polio Plus. In partnership with WHO, this programme aims to eliminate polio worldwide. Since its launch in 1985, it has attained a spectacular 99 per cent reduction worldwide with more than two billion children receiving oral polio vaccine and Rotary committing $650 million to the eradication of the disease.

Matching Grants. This programme enables clubs around the world to team up to combine their energies for the success of a humanitarian project. Rotary Foundation matches the funds thus collected by doubling them and has spent over $200 million in 166 countries since 1965. I am proud to say that my club, Rotary Club La Valette, has received a matching grant this year for the furnishing of a home for indigent girls in Tamil Nadu, India.

Rotary Centres for International Studies. Partnered with eight leading universities around the world, through this programme the Rotary Foundation strives to advance knowledge and world understanding among potential future leaders. Scholars are granted funds to take them through a two-year programme.

Group Study Exchange. As a Rotarian who has participated as group leader, I can vouch for the value of this programme. One group leader is chosen from Rotarians in a District to lead up to four non-Rotarians to experience life in some other part of the world. The two districts exchange groups with the aim of creating a human link between the peoples.

My particular experience was a visit, last April, to SW Florida District 6960, where I was welcomed together with two young Maltese professionals, Eric Flask and Josephine Farrugia, and a young actress from Messina, Sicily.

Among the most prominent Rotarians I met there was Steve Agius, who is of Maltese descent. He leads an extraordinary Rotarian programme - The Gift of Life - in which Rotarians offer accommodation in their homes to third world children born with cardiac defects. Rotary pays for their travel, upkeep, hospitalisation and treatment.

Ambassadorial Scholarships. Each year Rotary Foundation offers a number of scholarships. This year, through District 2110 Sicily-Malta, RF is offering:

A one-year Ambassadorial Scholarship worth up to $23,000; encouraged fields of study being health care, children at risk, concern for the aging, literacy, population issues, urban concerns, the disabled, international understanding and goodwill, poverty and hunger, polio eradication and post-polio syndrome, and preservation of Planet Earth.

Two six-month Cultural Scholarships, worth up to $15,000 each, designed to fund intensive language studies.

Interested persons should visit www.rotary.org for details and to download the application form which must be forwarded to: The Secretary, Rotary Club Malta, PO Box 549, Valletta CMR 01, by Monday, August 20.

Ms Salomone is District 2110 area delegate for Rotary Foundation.