February is…Peacebuilding & Conflict Prevention Month

Conflict, violence, persecution, and human rights violations cause more than 70 million people to be displaced. At least one-half of the displaced people are children. Rotarians refuse to acknowledge conflict as an acceptable way to live. Rotary Clubs worldwide create plans to provide training that will nurture understanding and give communities the needed abilities to settle conflict. Rotary establishes environments of peace.

As a human-centered organization, peace is the foundation of our mission. We believe that change can have a global effect when people work to create peace in their communities. Rotary service projects that support peace fellowships and scholarships allow our members to take action to address the underlying causes of conflict, imbalanced allocation of resources, the lack of access to education, discrimination, poverty, and ethnic tension.

Rotary’s dedication to peacebuilding today answers the challenges of making the most significant possible impact and achieving our vision of lasting change. We are approaching the idea of peace with greater harmony and inclusivity while expanding the scope of what is meant by peacebuilding and finding additional ways to involve communities. Rotary creates circumstances where peace can occur through four peace-promoting roles.

Rotary and its members function as:

• TEACHERS/EDUCATORS: Rotary Peace Centers have trained over 1,700 peace fellows worldwide to become successful promotors for peace through education, government careers, and organizations across the globe. There have been 7 Rotary Peace Centers worldwide: Bangkok, Thailand; Bradford, England; Brisbane, Australia; Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA; Kampala, Uganda; Uppsala, Sweden; Tokyo, Japan, and Rotary International is launching a new Peace Center; it will be located at  Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul, Turkey. Our Club is very proud and lucky to have the only Rotary Peace  Center in the United States near us. It is only 47 miles from where our Club meets!

• ADVOCATES: Rotary members are essential as valued, respected, and unbiased participants during peace processes and post-conflict rebuilding. We concentrate on creating communities and assembling inclusive, connected, and resilient groups.

• PRACTIONERS: The work we do—providing clean water and sanitation, supporting education, fighting disease, boosting local economies, and improving the health of mothers and kids—creates the perfect foundation for peaceful societies.

• MEDIATORS: Our Club members have settled humanitarian ceasefires in conflict areas to allow polio vaccinators to reach at-risk children.