Getting My Rotary Fix

On Sunday and Monday, I had the good fortune to attend Rotary functions on consecutive days. On Sunday, I and the other Ambassadorial Scholars at Legon joined the campus branch of Rotaract for its second meeting of the year. Rotaract is a Rotary-affiliated fellowship and service organization for people aged 18 – 30. Some Rotaract clubs are located on college campuses, but others are independent. This particular Rotaract club is supported by my host club, the Rotary Club of Accra.

At the Rotaract meeting, after rousing renditions of “When the saints go marching in” and “Clementine,” we heard a former Rotaracter give an engaging account of the history and purpose of Rotary and Rotaract. I was previously unaware that one of the first projects undertaken by Paul Harris and company in the early 1900s was to purchase a horse for an itinerant preacher so he could make his rounds more efficiently. I also learned that the next District 9100 conference will be held in Togo around Easter 2009. The other scholars and I had the opportunity to introduce ourselves, explain the purpose of the scholarship, and answer questions. The picture immediately above this post is of me exchanging the Rotary Club of Greenville’s banner with the Rotaract president, Collins.

On Monday, I made my way to the sprawling International Trade Fair Center to join 91 Rotarians for a special Accra intercity Rotary meeting to kick off the celebration of 50 years of Rotary in Ghana. In 1958, one year after independence, the Rotary Club of Accra was formed. It was the first in Anglophone West Africa, preceded in the region only by clubs in Dakar, Senegal (ca 1939) and Abijan, Ivory Coast. The young Accra club helped found other clubs, such as Kano in Northern Nigeria. In 1969, Accra West broke off from the founding club to form the second Ghanaian club.

The meeting itself was very enjoyable. The president calls the meetings to order by striking with a mallet two metal plates attached to a replica stool. The stool is a symbol of power in Ghana (this will receive its own post soon). The sound is distinctive – like stones falling in a bucket - as is the rhythm, two slow followed by two quick strikes. The members were enthusiastic in song and donations. They expressed hopes that one day Ghana would become its own Rotary district. The flags on the club’s front table spoke of exchanges with Rotary clubs from all over the world. At the table seated to my right was a former marketing executive who had managed accounts with Unilever; to my left was the former ambassador from Ghana to the United Kingdom. To describe the Accra clubs as cosmopolitan is perhaps a bit of an understatement. I will certainly look forward to further events like these.