"Rotary gives ordinary people extraordinary opportunities."

Last Sunday, this whole lovely group of people:

met at the University of Queensland's International House for a Rotary Scholar Seminar. Walking up to the meeting room at 8am with my two Rotary hosts, as well as one other Rotarian, was rather sad--the UQ International House was one of the worst hit buildings in St. Lucia in the January floods. So much so, that the entire complex is uninhabitable this whole semester. It was like walking through a ghost town. You could see the where the water had been on the side of buildings, and in some spots, the water was as high as midway up the 2nd story. It was just terrible. However, the mood brightened up as soon as we made it to the Rotary meeting room and got a nice welcoming cup of tea in us!

The day really was so insightful and helpful. It wasn't until Sunday that I realized just how lucky I am to be hosted by District 9600--District 9600 is home to one of only 7 Rotary Peace Centers in the WORLD!!! This means that I don't only get to network with and befriend the 2 other great Ambassadorial Scholars here with me, but also with 15 Rotary Peace Fellows who are studying Peace and Conflict Resolution at UQ. I got to spend a whole day with some incredible future leaders of the world. Go and get us that world peace, guys!!

Also, because I am in a Rotary District that has a Peace Center and is a "World Vision Pilot District," I get to be around some of the most involved and dedicated Rotarians in the world. The support system we have in District 9600 is unbelievable. I got a sense of that from the start through my own personal hosts, the Springers, who are so generous and great to be around, but then they could have just been anomalies and maybe I had just gotten lucky! However, seeing the large group of Rotarians who gave up their whole Sunday to come as our counselors and advisors to the Scholar Seminar was a great way to really make us feel welcome here, like honored guests! 

Second to my deep appreciation for getting to be a part of District 9600, I also walked away from the Sunday Scholar Seminar with a stronger sense of purpose for being here, a better grasp of my duties for the year ahead, and my "I can do it all!" attitude had come alive within me again!

I see the role of being a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar as having 3 parts to it:

1. Go to postgraduate school while maintaining high academic achievement
2. Serve as Ambassador of Goodwill, both informally by living in a foreign country amongst locals and formally through presentations
3. Giving back to the organization that has given me so much by participating in service projects to help the Rotary Foundation further its mission of alleviating poverty, supporting education, and improving health, while embodying the Rotary motto of "Service Above Self"

It was not very clear if for part 3 we were supposed to design our own service project to "help save the world", or whether it's sufficient enough to just help out with the projects already planned in the area and be supportive to those. In the long interview process to win the scholarship, one of the major points we had to discuss was what sort of service project we would design and implement if we were chosen, so at the time I assumed that was actual practice for doing the real thing and that it was a requirement. However, it was not made real clear in our Rotary duties once we were selected--not in our handbooks, nothing... and because I never heard anything about how to truly go about designing a project by Rotary guidelines or fundraise through Rotary (compounded by the hecticness of just trying to get my everyday life in order in a foreign country once I finally arrived here), it seemed like doing a service project single-handedly from scratch was just impossible and not really endorsed.

I feel quite differently after an epiphanous moment last Sunday. After talking to a few Rotarians who had some great ideas, as well as some go-getter Peace Fellows who were planning their mandatory field work projects, I have decided that I will do everything in my power to do a service project of my own that I am whole-heartedly passionate about. At the same time, I will choose to pursue a project (like a mini-dissertation) through my master's program at uni that will be a research analysis of my project or on the health issue my project will work to improve, instead of doing my whole master's degree just through coursework. 

I may be pursuing the more rigorous workload for the year ahead, but I'm ready to take some risks in order to reach my full potential with this amazing opportunity that Rotary has given me. As Judy said during the Sunday Scholar Seminar, "Rotary gives ordinary people extraordinary opportunities." I need to take full advantage of this once of a lifetime opportunity... so wish me luck!

P.S.

If anyone has any past experience or contacts with any public health organization in the Australia/Solomon Islands/Papua New Guinea region, please let me know! I would love any help and any recommendations possible.

P.P.S

As of today, I've officially been here 1 month! Wow, it has FLOWN by.