Rotary Fellowships: The road to friendship

Rotary fellowships provide a wonderful opportunity to make friends around the world, explore an interest or profession, and enhance your Rotary experience.

By Anne Matthews
D9560 Passport Rotary Club

Rotary fellowships are global groups that share a common interest, vocation, hobby or leisure activity. They began informally in 1928 when Rotarians with a shared interest in the artificial language Esperanto joined together.

The language was created in 1887 by Dr LL Zamenhof, a Polish linguist and optometrist, with the goal of facilitating international communication and promoting peace. Dr Zamenhof saw the language as a way to fight nationalism, and promote internationalism and mutual understanding.

In the 1920s, French and British Rotarians wanted to work together for ‘Peace and Understanding’, but each group hoped to speak the language of its own country. This resulted in the decision to promote Esperanto for use among Rotarians who spoke different languages.

Most speakers are based in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Brazil, the United States, Poland, Italy, Germany and France. However, there are also many Esperanto speakers in Australia, China and Japan.

Today, the original Rotary Association of Esperanto Speakers is officially called the Esperanto Rotary Fellowship. This pioneering fellowship paved the way for the 117 officially recognised Rotary fellowships that unite Rotarians across the globe today.

They cover an incredible array of interests – everything from artificial intelligence to comedy, caravanning and camping; fishing and flying; scuba diving, surfing, skiing and shooting to fashion, fine arts and genealogy. There are also sports fellowships and groups for various beverage enthusiasts.

This month, we discover a handful of our vast and varied Rotary fellowships.