Engage our Youth to create Future Leaders

September is dedicated to the Young Generations which encompasses EarlyAct, InterAct, Rotaract, Youth Exchange Programme and Rotary Young Leaders Awards.

New Generations Service became Rotary’s fifth Avenue of Service in 2010. It is defined in article 5 of the Standard Rotary Club Constitution to recognise the positive change implemented by youth and young adults through leadership development activities, involvement in community and international service projects, and exchange programs that enrich and foster world peace and cultural understanding.

When we focus on young people, we are focusing on building the future of Rotary and a younger generation of service-minded individuals. When we serve our youth, we help to bring Rotary to a new generation. We teach the importance of service to others, and pass on our core values.

Every young person who goes on a Rotary Youth Exchange will learn a great deal. Youth Exchange students learn how people who seem so different are really the same. They begin to appreciate what unites people everywhere. They have a broader understanding of the world. They come back as different people. They no longer know only one language, only one culture. They have connections with their host country, and with their fellow participants from other countries and at the end of their exchange, they are part of their host families. They are also part of the Rotary family – the largest and most international family in the world. During the past few years participants for long term exchanges have reduced drastically and whilst one can argue that it is due to economic reasons I also think that our Rotary family is growing older with our children having left the coup. As a result having a younger child from a foreign land presents a new set of problems for parents without children in the same age profile to keep your new child settled. This challenge provides us with a great opportunity of calling on close relatives and family friends to join in the programme which could encourage them to become members of our the local Rotary Club.

This dilemma also provides us with an opportunity of engaging with the younger generation and inviting them to join our Clubs bringing with them new ideas, new talents and a fresh view to community services whilst at the same time embracing our core values and principles. Reaching out to New Generations is a commitment to the future of your Rotary club. Clubs that build ties with youth in their communities cultivate future members and become rejuvenated by the energy and new perspectives that young people have to offer. Michael McQueen, a leading authority on the youth trends and strategies for engaging with Gen Y notes that one of the things that makes Rotary so unique and powerful is that way in which it’s guiding principles and core values bring together people who would otherwise have very little in common. Rotary transcends ideological, political and cultural divides in a way few organisations can. I invite you to read Michael’s full article on “5 Strategies to attracting younger members” on my blogpage.

I think you would agree with me that the success of your Clubs depend on the leadership of your Club Executive. So much of what we accomplish in Rotary depends on the direction provided by our leadership. More than anything else we need Club leaders who will lead us into the future, building on everything that has gone on in the past. An interesting article was published by Dr Jagdish Bhatt of the Rotary Club of Bombay Airport, Mumbai, India on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Rotarians. These included attendance, fellowship, respect for one’s and other’s vocation, discipline, empathy, image and time, money and energy. I have posted this article onto my blog page. It is worth a read.

If we want to see another century of Rotary we must make Rotary attractive to young people. Many young people share our beliefs. To get them involved in Rotary we need to become more flexible with our practices and our activities. We need to become more aware of the communication channels of our younger generations. It is not the responsibility for younger people to come to our Clubs, it is ours to invite them.

Perhaps the best way to describe Rotary’s Fifth Avenue of Service was articulated by Past RI President Luis Giay (1996-1997) when he said:

“Our vision for the future, now more than ever, is the difference between success and failure. The New Generations are our investment in the future. Let us begin to build that future today".

This was said, based on the year’s annual theme of “Build the Future with Action & Vision”. It was the year when I became Club President for my local Rotary Club. When I became Governor in 2009-2010 the theme was “The Future of Rotary is in your Hands”. Appropriately, both themes, included the word “Future”. So let’s go out there to build the future Rotary, a younger Rotary and we can do this by engaging with our Youth and bringing in younger members and through mentoring, create future leaders and change their lives.