We still have two months Message from the chair - May 2015
As we enter into May, we have two months left to ensure that you have made your contribution to Rotary’s charity, our Rotary Foundation.
There is still time to ensure that it is greater than it was last year — our goal for the Annual Fund is US $123 million, the highest it’s ever been. And there’s still time to ensure that your contribution enables our Foundation to continue to do good in the world — and that you can have the personal satisfaction of contributing to this in a meaningful way.
May means that there’s also just over one month until the Rotary International Convention in São Paulo, Brazil. This year we have outstanding speakers on Foundation-related topics, both at the convention and at the Rotary Peace Symposium held immediately prior to the convention. They include Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Oscar Arias, Australian entrepreneur Steve Killelea, Rotary Peace Fellow Katia de Mello Dantas, and Global Alumni Service to Humanity Award winner Geetha Jayaram.
Arias was President of Costa Rica from 1986 to 1990 and 2006 to 2010, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his role as architect and peace-broker in ending multiple conflicts in Central America. Arias continues to be an international force for peacebuilding through his personal activities and the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress.
Killelea is an Australian entrepreneur and philanthropist, known internationally as the developer of the Global Peace Index. In 2007, he established the Institute for Economics and Peace as a vehicle to build a greater understanding of the interconnection between business, peace and economics.
Dantas received her master’s degree in international development policy from Duke University in 2009. She works tirelessly on behalf of vulnerable children as the Latin America and Caribbean policy director for the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children.
I look forward to seeing you in São Paulo.
John Kenny
Foundation Trustee Chair
