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An Investment in Goodwill |
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Written by Bill Boyd
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An estimated 878 million people around the world — nearly half of them employed — live on less than US$1.25 a day. Rotarians bring economic and community development to impoverished areas through projects that provide vocational training, support local entrepreneurs and community leaders, and assist with long-term recovery in places struck by natural disaster.
Hannah Warren, a former Ambassadorial Scholar, says her Rotary experience inspired her to become a social entrepreneur. She founded Jhoole, a nonprofit business that offers impoverished women in India access to training, materials, and international markets for hand-woven goods, enabling them to earn a living wage.
With help from a Rotary Foundation grant, Jhoole acquired looms, cloth, and funds to cover training costs for weaving and sewing. “There is no way I could be doing this [work] were it not for my Ambassadorial Scholarship,” Warren says. “Like Jhoole’s programs, Rotary scholarships are not a one-time donation; they are an investment in goodwill.”
Watch a video about Hannah Warren's work and Rotary's focus on community and economic development: http://vimeo.com/33736218
Extract of an article by Bill Boyd
Trustee Chair, The Rotary Foundation
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 28 December 2011 )
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