Women and Health

What is Rotary?
Rotary International is a global network of service volunteers. It is the world's largest service organisation for business and professional people, with some 1,210,905 members operating in 168 countries world-wide.

Rotarians — men and women alike — volunteer their efforts to improve the quality of life in their own communities and beyond their communities' borders. The world's Rotary clubs meet weekly and are non-political, non-religious, and open to all cultures, races, and creeds. Club membership represents a cross-section of local business and professional leaders.

Rotarians initiate community projects that address many of today's most critical issues, such as violence, drug abuse, youth, AIDS, hunger, the environment, and illiteracy. Rotary clubs are autonomous and determine service projects based on local needs.

Mission
The main objective of Rotary is service — in the community and throughout the world. Rotarians build goodwill and peace, provide humanitarian service, and encourage high ethical standards in all vocations. The Rotary motto is "Service Above Self."

The Object of Rotary
The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

FIRST. The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;

SECOND. High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the
worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an
opportunity to serve society;

THIRD. The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian's personal, business and
community life;

FOURTH. The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a
world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

The Four Way Test
"Of the things we think, say or do:
1. Is it the truth?
2. Is it fair to all concerned?
3. Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
4. Will it be beneficial to all concerned?"

One of the most widely printed and quoted statements of business ethics in the world is the Rotary Four-Way Test. It was created by Rotarian Herbert J. Taylor in 1932 when he was asked to take charge of a company that was facing bankruptcy.