For several years now, I’ve felt like the Rotarians are following me. It all started with a colleague in the city of Samaná in the Dominican Republic, who always had—in my opinion—too many commitments to the organization: one event here, another there.
Aside from my selfish frustration with what I then perceived as his failure to meet our shared work priorities, I ignored the whole thing. The Rotarians were as opaque to me as the sea surrounding the peninsula where we were.
Later, further afield in other places, I began to hear about them from other sources, and now and then I saw an advertisement on a building or roundabout announcing support from Rotary International clubs. That’s how I gradually started to learn about them, and what particularly caught my attention was that the Rotarians seemed to be an organization that existed almost everywhere in the world.
In this context of widespread presence, it wasn’t such a big surprise when I unexpectedly ran into Dr. José Andrés Azcárate Varela, president of the Rotary Club of San Luis Potosí, this past week.
Currently, Dr. Azcárate told me, there are seven local Rotary International chapters in the city of San Luis Potosí. These seven are part of more than 32,700 chapters worldwide, with over 1,200,000 members.
The organization was founded in Chicago in 1905, based on the ideas of American lawyer Paul Harris to bring people together, build social connections, and help the community. In terms of operation, the chapters function autonomously to carry out humanitarian and social service projects in their respective communities.
Of these groups, the oldest in San Luis Potosí is the Rotary Club of San Luis Potosí, which Dr. Azcárate leads. Founded in 1925, it celebrated its centennial last year. His main work responsibilities—or “areas”—focus on sectors of the population with low socioeconomic status, in the areas of health (especially maternal and child health), the environment, education, and support for the elderly.
For his part, Dr. Azcárate, a plastic surgeon, leads a project to surgically correct cleft lip and palate.
This cleft lip and palate is a congenital malformation that affects 1 in 650 children and occurs when the tissues of the face and mouth do not fuse correctly during pregnancy, affecting feeding, speech, and hearing.
The good news is that it is treatable with a multidisciplinary team of specialists, and that is where Dr. Azcárate and the Rotary Club of San Luis Potosí come in, with a team of 6 people, including the surgeon, nurses, and a psychologist—all working pro bono, with the Rotarians covering the cost of supplies, operating room, etc.
Each patient undergoes between three and six surgeries, depending on the severity of the case, and support is continuous throughout the entire process. To date, they have performed 482 surgeries.
Furthermore, throughout the country, Rotary members carry out important and impactful projects. In Monterrey, for example, they actively promote the protection of the monarch butterfly through binational projects.
Among their concrete actions, they raise funds to plant thousands of oyamel fir trees (the butterfly’s natural habitat) in overwintering sanctuaries; in the Monterrey metropolitan area, they train young women to promote the creation of habitats and gardens for pollinators in the city; and they support scientific research initiatives in local spaces such as Chipinque Ecological Park to understand the resting and feeding behavior of the monarch butterfly as it passes through the metropolitan area.
In a complex and fractured world, it is increasingly important to celebrate organizations that unite us and strengthen the social fabric.
It’s a shame I realized it took me so long to understand and appreciate the work of Rotary International, but here they are, where they’ve been for generations, supporting school renovations, donating wheelchairs, sponsoring music, dance, and singing events for senior citizens—and so much more.
As the saying goes, good things often go unmentioned, but they matter a great deal. With the Rotarians, we clearly have an example that brings this saying to life today, both internationally and in Mexico, and—of course—in San Luis Potosí.
By Jon Bonfiglio for the San Luis Potosi Post
Based in Mexico, Jon Bonfiglio is a Latin America Correspondent for Times Radio in London, as well as regularly contributing for LBC (UK), Enfoque Noticias (Mexico), ABC (Australia), Grupo Formula (Mexico), and a variety of others. Bonfiglio also covers sport for Talk Sport (UK) and the World Cup Football ETC podcast, and writes about art for Newcity (Chicago), Glasstire (Texas), and Art in San Miguel. For more information, visit: latinamericacorrespondent.com
