Rotary International President-elect, Shekhar Mehta, unveiled the annual Presidential theme for the Rotary year 2021/22 during the first ever virtual International Assembly. "Serve to Change Lives" highlights the central motivation of Rotarians to make a difference through their service.

On the 1st of July of every year, Rotary effects a change of leadership within all 34,000 Clubs worldwide, within all the Districts and at the International level.  With this change comes new ideas, new people, adjustments to objectives and goals within the longer-term Rotary Action Plan and also a new theme.  The annual rotation, from which Rotary gets its name, is a reset process along a clear path and set of goals.

 

Announcing the Presidential Theme of "Serve to Change Lives", President Elect Mehta, a member of the Rotary Club of Calcutta-Mahanagar, West Bengal, India, demonstrated the strong history and sense of service that he personally brings to the role, which reflects the extent to which Service is a key motivator for the 1.2 million Rotarians around the world. He cited moving stories of how people’s lives have been changed by Rotary.

 

While there has been much thought about how effective it may be to have this level of frequency of change in leadership, the annual term of leaders has proven to focus their attention to get their agenda implemented within their year.

 

With the annual change comes a new presidential theme and a new theme logos that accompanies the consistent Rotary branding. The theme however is much more than a logo: it is also gives a sense of direction and emphasis for that year building on previous themes, consistent with the Rotary Action Plan.

 

We all know that helping others is so much more personally satisfying and rewarding altruism is so much stronger than selfishness. The theme also demonstrates the scale of Rotary’s impact globally aiming not just to improve but change the lives of those served by Rotarians and Rotary.

 

Rotary members around the globe are serving humanity by providing clean water to underdeveloped communities, promoting peace in conflict areas, and strengthening communities through basic education and literacy and none more important than our work to eradicate polio worldwide. 

 

Presenting the theme, President-Elect Shekhar said that “Service is the rent we pay for the space we occupy on this earth”. His initiatives to Grow More to Do More and the membership drive of “Each One Bring One” all align with Rotary’s action plan ands goals.

 

Rotary Club Malta has consistently helped both our local community as well as those across the globe. In addition to the help provided by Rotary Club Malta to local institutes during the Covid-19 pandemic, last April we also concluded the building of our second school in Uganda. Consisting of 10 very well-built classrooms, the project also focused on providing adequate sanitary facilities for girls in a bid to ensure we address the issue of the low participation by girls in school due to the lack of such facilities is addressed. This project in Luwero was co-financed with the Government of Malta’s Overseas Development Aid programme.  

 

This project certainly is an example of how Rotary and Rotarians Serve to Change Lives.

 

If you would like to see how you can serve to change lives, contact us at service@rotary.org.mt.  As President-Elect Shekhar says, “the more we are, the more we can do”.