Why Rotary scholarships are sustainable investments

By Rotary International

Sarah Ehlinger Affotey, a former Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, at a project site in Ghana.

By Sarah Ehlinger Affotey

After receiving an Ambassadorial Scholarship from Rotary in 2011, I put a lot of pressure on myself to “do it right,” or in other words, give Rotary a solid return on their investment. With each passing month in Ghana, what I had first deemed as peripheral – the friendships, conversations, and breakdown of stereotypes – were actually advancing world understanding, goodwill, and peace. How ingenious that this scholarship allowed me to advance Rotary’s mission subconsciously?

Despite all these “non-tangible” returns, at the end of my master’s program in Ghana I was itching for real-world action. While waiting for my thesis review and graduation schedule (sometimes a yearlong process), a Rotarian from my host club told me about her NGO on the outskirts of Accra. She mentioned the community suffered from a large waste pile contaminating their water. With my background in environmental health, I immediately latched onto the potential project but didn’t know how to help make it happen.

Key takeaways
We tried to crowd source funds to no avail. I was back in the US presenting at a district conference and figured it wouldn’t hurt …read more

Source:: Rotary International Blog

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