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In Harare 14 new presidents were installed at various Rotary clubs around the city. They join thousands of others who took the organisation’s presidential oath in various centres around the world.

The clubs are members of Rotary International, a global network of inspired individuals in a wide cross-section of vocations who use their professions and international connections to promote charitable and humanitarian causes to improve livelihoods.

Working under the global motto “Service above self”, clubs work at trying to meet the needs of their members and communities by engaging in projects that focus on water and sanitation, basic education and literacy, disease prevention and treatment, economic and community development, peace and conflict prevention and/or resolution and maternal and child health.

Speaking at his installation ceremony, the new president of the Rotary Club of Hunyani, Mr Ray Mawerera, urged Zimbabweans in general to take up community service to help improve livelihoods.

“It is incumbent upon every individual in society to do what we can to light up someone else’s life,” he said.

“We can do this in so many ways, including joining a group of people planting trees to promote conservation, digging wells to provide water where it is scarce or, even building an amusement park in a community where children are inadvertently deprived of the right of being children.

“If you want to live your life with a clear conscience and have it measured by what you have done, rather than what you have possessed, community service has the answer.”

In Zimbabwe Rotary clubs have been actively involved in health projects that have helped with access to drugs and ambulance services and to mitigate various disabilities, including eyesight restoration. Many schools have benefited from book distribution campaigns aimed at improving basic literacy, while communities around the country have received support for water and sanitation activities.

Children of non-Rotarians and some older professional non-Rotarians have been sent out to experience life on other continents through international study exchange programmes.