Noting that “world peace can only come when there is no poverty,” Frank and Kathleen Mayhew of the Rotary Club of Sebastopol, California, USA, urge Rotarians to take a new direction to end poverty.

To do that, the Mayhews propose their “Adopt a Village” model.

Here’s how it works:  A Rotary club in a developing country selects a village, assesses its needs, and designs a project with health, food production, and education components.  A partner club adopts the village, addressing all three issues at once.  Projects usually cost about US$30,000; some have been completed through Matching Grants from The Rotary Foundation.

Villages in Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Uganda have participated with support from partner clubs in Canada, England, and the United States.  The Mayhews, who have given presentations at several North American clubs, currently act as matchmakers, but they encourage clubs with good working relationships to take the concept and run with it.

“While Rotary has had 3-H grants, which are huge grants, nobody has really looked at the multielement grant.  It kind of comes as a surprise to people,” says Frank Mayhew, who chairs the grants subcommittee for District 5130. “It does make sense.”

-Rotaryworld, April 2009