New Generations Service, which became the fifth avenue of service earlier this year, highlights the very important role Rotarians play in influencing the development of young people in our communities and around the world.  Today’s youth and young adults represent our future, and Rotarians have a history of being strong advocates for those who will one day become productive citizens and future business, professional and community leaders.

With this newly formalized avenue for club activity, we have an opportunity to devote more resources to programs which provide a strong grounding in areas such as volunteerism, leadership, service, collaboration and responsible citizenship. Also, we must find ways to assist young people to cope more effectively with issues and challenges common to their generation, and to better prepare them to succeed in an increasingly interconnected, interdependent and diverse global society.

Historically, Rotary clubs in our region have been in the forefront of new generations service. We sponsor Interact Clubs at 49 high schools. Charlotte North Rotary sponsored the first Rotaract club in the world, and today we have active clubs at nine local area colleges. Attendance at the Seminar for Tomorrow’s Leaders continues to grow year after year, with seventy-one students at the most recent SFTL in July. We are hosting inbound Rotary Youth Exchange students from France, Germany, Thailand, Japan, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina. And five Rotary clubs have sponsored nine local students to spend a year studying and living in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Taiwan and Argentina. One cannot speak too highly of the Rotarians whose dedication, commitment and hard work make these programs such a huge success.

I encourage more Rotarians to participate in New Generations Service and urge those already engaged in such service to share ideas and collaborate to extend the scope of existing programs and develop new ways to support, educate, motivate and enable those who will one day follow in our footsteps.

District Governor Firoz Peera