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Community Service
Rotary Projects Help Disadvantaged Peruvians

Rotary International, a worldwide service club with 1,200,000 members in 167 countries, performs many projects of help for hungry, sick, and disadvantaged people each year. In its 140 Peruvian clubs, these include such activities as medical missions including Rotaplast which comes to Peru each year twice (next month in Huaraz and in June in La Oroya) where they perform more than 200 operations during each 10-day visit. The visiting group includes 5 surgeons, 5 anesthesiologists, a pediatrician, a dentist, and an orthodontist, both recovery room and operating room nurses, as well as Rotary volunteers who perform logistical work (often as many as 40 in the group). Rotacleft, another Rotary organization, has visited Huánuco for several years and is now coming to Huacho for the same purpose. Other medical groups with other specialties (ophthalmologists, dentists, surgeons, etc) frequently visit remote towns where their specialty is not available all performing their work free.

Local clubs procure medical instrumentation so badly needed in hospitals throughout Peru, provide communal and school dining rooms, work hard to eliminate illiteracy, and have been very instrumental in eliminating polio in Peru. In celebration of their 100th anniversary on February 23, 2005, Rotary has been very much involved with major monetary donations and hands-on assistance to medical personnel in order to eliminate polio worldwide this year. Very little work remains to accomplish this goal and it will be celebrated widely in centennial activities throughout the world.

Rotary is seeking men or women who would like to help solve the numerous problems in Peru, particularly health, hunger, water and sanitation. An example is a mechanical cow which converts soya beans to delicious, nutritious milk very economically. One cow can provide a large glass of milk to more than 3,000 people each day and the clubs are in process of purchasing, through grants funded by foreign clubs and the Rotary Foundation, more than 50 cows at this time. In the past ten years, Rotary projects have provided considerably more than $1 million in projects in the Lima area.

Locally, there are 52 clubs in the Lima-Callao district, 3 of them with weekly luncheon meetings and the others with evening reunions. A new club is being initiated that includes many ACAP members. It has a special requirement that all members must speak English because all meetings are conducted in that language. Another major difference is that this club (as yet unnamed) has its weekly meetings for breakfast from 7:30 to 8:30 AM in a hotel in Miraflores (the hours are strictly observed).

If you are interested in obtaining more information, or in attending a meeting, please contact Martin Singer at: 442-5682 or mbs@amauta.rcp.net.pe

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