INTERNATIONAL SERVICE (Director: Vacant)...
International Service is Rotary's fourth avenue of service. International Service encompasses actions taken to expand Rotary's humanitarian reach around the globe and promote world understanding and peace.
The aim of International Service in Rotary is expressed in the fourth Object of Rotary; namely, to encourage and foster the advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service. Freedom, justice, truth, sanctity of the pledged word, and respect for human rights are inherent in Rotary principles and are also vital to the maintenance of international peace and order and to human progress.
In concept, International Service can be broken down into four general areas as follows:
1. World Community Service Programs
2. International Educational and Cultural Exchange Activities
3. Special International Observances and Events
4. International Meetings
The Anaheim Hills Rotary Club's more recent International Service projects included: Purchasing and delivering an autoclave unit to a hospital in Jamaica; Bringing more than US$9,000.00 for an AIDS project (education, as well as supplies) to South Africa via the Rotary Club of Edenvale, South Africa; Hosting District Governors/leaders from other countries during their visit to Orange County; Traveling to Chicago, Illinois to actively participate in Rotary's 100 year/Centennial Celebration Convention which drew over 40,000 Rotarians from all around the world; Contributing significant sums of money over many years in support of the fight to eradicate Polio from the face of the earth (which will hopefully become a reality within the next two or three years!); Building a house-in-a-day for a desperately poor young family in Mexico; Traveling to Caborca Mexico and walking door to door in villages to administer the oral Polio vaccine into the mouths of children 5 years of age and under.
The Anaheim Hills Rotary Club, working with several other clubs both within and outside of our home District 5320, participated in a very large project that brought water wells and water storage tanks to arid parts of Mexico, bringing fresh water to thousands of people (500 per well).
AHRC's most recent project delivered hundreds if not thousands of needed books for schools and libraries in the Philippines.
AHRC is currently working on a project that will put several hundered USB computer thumb drives in the hands of students in the Philippines, and we are considering a project to bring medical and hospital aid to those families in need in Israel.
Clearly our reach goes to countries and regions all over the globe.