Villages in four regions of Ghana are being equipped with ventilated pit latrines, showers, and boreholes featuring hand pumps and mechanized pipes through the efforts of dozens of Rotary clubs in Latin America, North America, and Ghana. The first phase of the partnership has focused on three countries: Ghana, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic.

The International H2O Collaboration is an example of Rotary’s dedication to water and sanitation issues, an area of focus under The Rotary Foundation’s Future Vision Plan.

In Ghana, Rotarians are working with committees in about 100 communities to change sanitation behaviors and provide training on maintaining the new equipment. The committees are responsible for establishing fees for water use and using the money collected to operate and maintain the pumps.

Rotarians interested in water and sanitation can attend a workshop on the International H2O Collaboration, moderated by Thorfinnson, on 24 May at the 2011 RI Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Water and Sanitation Rotarian Action Group will also host a fourth annual World Water Summit on 20 May at the New Orleans Marriott.

You can watch more Rotary clips by clicking here.

Think big! Returned Peace Corps volunteers? Someone in the local police force? Public administrators? Environmental engineers? Immigration experts? Educators? Someone you met while working on a project in a developing nation? Rotarians should reach out to candidates who demonstrate a commitment to peace and conflict resolution through academic, volunteer, or professional experience, as well as outstanding leadership abilities and high academic achievement.

The Rotary Peace Fellowship program provides professionals from a variety of countries with the opportunity to study at one of six leading universities around the world in Rotary Centers for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution.

Rotary Peace Fellows are leaders promoting national and international cooperation, peace, and the successful resolution of conflict throughout their lives, in their careers, and through service activities. Fellows can earn either a master’s degree in international relations, public administration, sustainable development, peace studies, conflict resolution, or a related field, or a three-month professional development certificate in peace and conflict resolution. Graduates become Rotary Peace Fellows, able to be part of tomorrow’s solution in promoting greater tolerance and cooperation among peoples worldwide.

For applications and more information, please visit Rotary Peace Fellows and download the Rotary Centers for International Studies Program Guide for Rotarians. The deadline for submitting applications from clubs to the Peace Fellowship Committee is April 29, 2011. Interviews are scheduled to be held June 18, 2011.

In the spirit of promoting peace around the globe, this is how to say ‘Peace’ in more than 100 languages.

Peace: a state of harmony, the absence of hostility.

Abenaqui = Olakamigenoka

Alabama = Ittimokla

Albanian = La Paqe

Algonquin = Wâki Ijiwebis-I

Amharic = Írq

Arabic = Salam

Aranés = La Patz

Armenian = Khanhaghutyun

Basque = Bake

Bemba = Mutenden

Blackfoot = Innaihtsi’iyi

Bulgarian = Mír Bosnian

Buli = Goom-jigi

Carolinian = Gúnnammwey

Catalán = La Pau

Chinese = Pingan

Choctaw = Achukma

Chuuk = Kunammwey

Comanche = Tsumukikatu

Cree = Wetaskiwin

Creole = Lapé Haitian

Duala = Musango

Dutch = Vrede Afrikaans

Ekari = Muka-muka

English = Peace

Esperanto = Paco

Estonian = Rahu

Fanagolo = Kutula

Farsi = Ashtee

Finnish = Rauha

French = La Paix

Gaelic = Sìth

Gaelic = Fois Scots

Gafuleya Chontal = Aylobaha

German = Der Frieden

Gikuyu = Thayu

Greek = Iri’ni

Guaraní = Ñerane’i

Gujarati = Shanti Bengali

Hausa = Lùmana

Hawaiian = Maluhia

Hebrew = Shalom

Hungarian = Béke

Icelandic = Friður

Igbo = Udo

Ila = Chibanda

Indonesian = Damai

Indonesian = Rerdamaian

Irish = Síocháin

Japanese = Heiwa

Javanese = Rukun

Khmer = Soksang

Koasati = Ilifayka

Korean = Pyong’hwa

Kurdish = Hasîtî

Lakhota = Wolakota

Latin = Pax

Latvian = Miers

Lithuainian = Taika

Luxemburgish = Fridden

Magindanaon = Kalilíntad

Malgache = Fandriampahalemana

Maltese = Paçi

Manobo = Linew

Maori = Rangima’arie

Mapudungun = Uvchin

Maranao = Diakatra

Maya = Ets’a'an Olal

Micmac = Wôntôkóde

Mongo-Nkundu = Boóto

Munsterian = Echnahcaton

Navajo = K’é

Nepali = Saanti

Nhengatu = Tecócatú

North Alaska Inuktitut = Tutkiun

Northwest Alaska Inupiat Inuktitut = Kiñuiñak

Norwegian = Fred Danish

Ntomba = Nye

Nyanja = Mtendere Chewa

Otomi = Hmethó

Palauan = Búdech

Pali = Nirudho

Papago/Pima = Dodolimdag

Pashto = Amniat

Perce = Éyewi Nez

Persian = Solh Dari

Pig Latin = eace-pay

Polish = Pokój

Ponapean = Meleilei

Portuguese = A Paz Galician

Rapanui = Kiba-kiba

Romanian = La Pace Italian

Ruanda = Nimuhóre

Sa Lao = Kwam

Sa’a = Däilama

Samoan = Filemu

Sesotho = Khotso

Setswana = Kagiso

Sioux = Wo’okeyeh

Somali = Nabad -Da

Spanish = La Paz

Swahili = Amaní

Tagalog = Mabuhay

Tagalog Filipino = Kapayapaan

Tahitian = Hau

Tamil = Amaithi

Thai = Santipap

Tiaykuy Quechua = Sonqo

Tibetan = Shîte

Tlingit = Li-k’ei

Tonga = Melino

Turkish = Sulh

Turkish = Barish

Twi-Akan = Asomdwee

Uighur = Saq

Urdu = Aman Malay

Usilal Kékchí = Tuktuquil

Vietnamese = Hoa Bình

Welsh = Hedd

Wintu = Mina

Xhosa = Uxolo

Yiddish = Sholim

Yoruba = Alaáfía

Zapoteco = Layéni

Zulu = Ukuthula

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation released its 2011 Annual Letter that highlights the progress in the fight to eradicate polio. Gates and Rotary International have kept polio eradication a top priority. “Everywhere I go to learn about polio,” Gates said, “I see Rotary members helping out with the hard work.”

In the Annual Letter, Gates acknowledged his foundation gives about $200 million each year to the polio campaign. However, the 2011-2012 campaign still faces a funding gap of $720 million. “We are so close, but we have to finish the last leg of the journey.”

Gates advises anyone who wants to support the polio campaign to visit EndPoloNow on Rotary International.

“We need to bring the cases down to zero, maintain careful surveillance to ensure the virus is truly gone, and keep defenses up with polio vaccines until we’ve confirmed success.”

The webcast will present a powerful case for the value of vaccines. Gates, along with other global leaders, will discuss what the past can teach us about protecting children around the world from polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases. ABC World News anchor Diane Sawyer will moderate the event.

Rotary’s $200 Million Challenge is The Rotary Foundation’s response to two grants totaling $355 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help eradicate polio.

To read more about the webcast and about how you can support to fight to end polio, click here.

His obituary further read: “A spirit of loneliness influenced Mr. Harris in part to create the world-wide organization. He was educated at Princeton and the University of Iowa in 1891. For five years he roamed, working as a newspaper man, an actor, and a salesman. He worked on fruit farms, and twice worked his way to Europe on cattle boats. Paul Harris became a lawyer after his journeys.

Mr. Harris then founded Rotary in 1905 in Chicago with a single club with only few members. Today Rotary has grown to 33,883 clubs in 213 countries with more than 1,210,400 members.

To learn more about Paul Harris and his contributions, click here.

He urged Rotarians to find their inner strength then, “they can accomplish great things in their communities and around the world.” Banerjee told Rotarians, “Discover yourself, develop the strengths within you, and then unhesitatingly, unflinchingly, go forth and encircle the world, to embrace humanity.”

Banerjee’s theme is a proclamation to all Rotarians in 2011-12, “If we wish environmental degradation to stop, if we wish to reduce child mortality or to prevent hunger, we must be the instrument of that change – and recognize that it must start within us, with each of us.”

Last summer, a young Rotarian from Michigan, USA, set out to drive a 2001 Chevy Metro with 140,000 miles on it from England to Mongolia.

The Mongol Rally – equal parts charity fundraiser and lunatic odyssey – was dreamed up by two bored Englishmen and held for the first time in 2004 with six cars. In 2009, more than 400 teams took part. Ralliers can choose their own route to the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, but their cars must have an engine no larger than 1.2 liters — and no GPS. Getting lost is more or less the point, although those cars that make it to Mongolia are donated to charity.

“You are supposed to be on an adventure, not in a nursery class, so if the sky does fall on your head, prop it up with a windscreen wiper and carry on,” the rally website reads. “If you’re worried, stay at home.”

It was a siren call that Scott Brills couldn’t resist. Brills, a member of the Rotary Club of West Bloomfield, and his friend Collin Otto, took the team name Hardly Working and raised $1,650 for Mercy Corps Mongolia, one of the rally’s official charities. Brills, then 26, and Otto, 25, then collected an additional $7,000 to help build and outfit a kindergarten in Mongolia, a joint project of Brills’s club and the Rotary Club of Bayanzurkh 100 in Ulaanbaatar.

“We decided to drive to Mongolia in search of adventure, and adventure is most definitely what we got,” says Brills. “Starting off with a half-year fundraising campaign for a seemingly ludicrous attempt to drive across a third of the earth’s surface to deliver funds to assist in building and outfitting a kindergarten in a country many people had never even heard of, we had our work cut out for us.

“Throughout the 10,000-mile trip, we were accosted by border guards, held captive by corrupt police, stranded in no man’s land between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and even had our vehicle die on a 10,000-foot plateau in the middle of Tajikistan — just to name a few of our hilarious mishaps.

“But all of the challenges we faced over the nine-week journey are minor compared to the many positive experiences we had, the people we met, the scenery we witnessed, and the lives we helped change.”

After being constructed on on land and then sent into the bay, the reef was about four meters high, 21 meters in diameter and weighed about 85 tons. In addition to being the world’s largest artificial reef, it is also the largest Rotary symbol on display today!

Take a look at videos of the reef’s construction process from the District 5110 site. Also, Rotary District 6880 in Alabama provides this post with more information about the reef.