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ROTARY AT UNITED NATIONS EVENT

By Vukoni Lupa-Lasaga 

Rotary International was among scores of non-government organizations represented at the 50th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women at UN headquarters in New York City. The session, which opened on 27 February, ran until 10 March.

On the opening day, Rotary Foundation Trustee Carolyn E. Jones and Joan Fyfe, alternate RI representative to the UN in New York, participated in a panel discussion for NGOs on the theme "Empowering Women for Leadership Roles." Jones and Fyfe attended on behalf of Rotary International, which was a sponsor of the panel discussion, along with Soroptimist International and Zonta International.

Jones explains that the discussion, which was chaired by Fyfe, brought the vast reach of Rotarians' humanitarian work to an audience of some 70 representatives of NGOs from around the world.

"If they did not know of Rotary beforehand, they certainly know about Rotary and microcredit banking now," says Jones, who made a presentation about Rotary's support for microcredit projects that mainly benefit women in underserved communities. "I could see from the faces that they all understood that the concept of microcredit banking could work in their countries as well."

Jones's presentation highlighted the success of the Rotary club-sponsored Uniendo América Microbanking Project in empowering women in Central America. The US$500,000 initiative was set up in the 1990s by Guatemalan and U.S. Rotary clubs involved with the annual Uniendo América project fair of Central American Rotary clubs.

It was initially aimed at helping hurricane-devastated communities in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. More than 3,000 people, 95 percent of them women, have directly benefited from the effort. Over 20,000 people, mostly children, are indirect beneficiaries.

The fund has grown to $720,000 as a result of the modest interest charged on the loans provided through the effort.

Fyfe concurs with Jones about the benefits to Rotary of cosponsoring or participating in events such as the UN gathering. "It brings Rotary visibility to hundreds of women from around the world," she explains. "Some women had the impression that [Rotary] is still a man's club."

After the presentation, both Rotarians fielded questions from the audience and the Soroptimist and Zonta representatives, who also were participants on the panel discussion.

Jones especially remembers her interaction with Sakena Yacoobi, a co-panelist and Zonta representative from Afghanistan.

When Yacoobi responded to a question about how Zonta's educational programs empower Afghan women, Jones saw in it an opportunity to tell the story of Rotary in Afghanistan. She told the audience that when Rotary was reintroduced into the country after the ouster of the Taliban regime in 2001, the charter president of the Rotary Club of Kabul was a woman.

"That drew a huge round of applause," Jones recalls. "At the end of the meeting, my co-panelist asked me to send her contact information for the Afghanistan clubs because she would like to propose a joint education project."

Jones says that she still receives e-mail requests for additional information about Rotary and its humanitarian programs from people who took her business card.

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