Kyiv's Rotary Club marks a decade of service, recalls its beginnings (06/16/02)

Kyiv's Rotary Club marks a decade of service, recalls its beginnings

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - In 1990, Lubomyr Hewko, an auto industry executive living in Clarkston, Mich., who was very active in his local Rotary Club, was invited to give a presentation at the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute on the workings of the auto industry. The talk included a short discourse on Rotary International, the charitable organization of businessmen and professionals founded in 1905, whose purpose it is to do good deeds while fostering collegiality and close ties among the members.

Mr. Hewko's remarks elicited much interest from the academics and professionals present at KPI regarding the concept and workings of Rotary clubs.

At about the same time in Seattle, Wash., Volodymyr Kulyk of Kyiv, a member of the National Olympic Committee who had just attended the Goodwill Games in Canada, was accompanying the world's largest aircraft, the AN-225 known as Mria, at the Seattle Air Show, after which it was to do a medical airlift to Ukraine for the Children of Chornobyl Relief Fund of Short Hills, N.J. Mr. Kulyk was very impressed with the work and motivation of the volunteers on hand at the air show, who were members of the Lynnwood, Wash., Rotary Club.

When Mr. Hewko turned to the European headquarters of Rotary in Zurich about having his Clarkston club help begin a local Rotary chapter in Kyiv, he was informed that five other clubs from around the world - the Vancouver and Toronto organizations of Canada, the Lynnwood, Wash., and Shrewsbury, Pa., clubs of the U.S., and the Edinburgh club of Scotland - also had made inquiries. Likewise, when Mr. Kulyk got back to Kyiv and started to talk about Rotary, he quickly learned that preparations for a club were already in the works.

The six foreign clubs, only two of which had members with Ukrainian roots, decided to pool their efforts and to contribute $2,000 each to the development of a club in Ukraine's capital. Within a short time an initiative group had been formed, and then in May 1992 the Kyiv Rotary Club received the first Ukrainian charter.

That club celebrated 10 years in Ukraine on May 17 with a gala banquet and various other festivities, attended by Rotary International President Richard D. King. Also on hand were the two veritable founding fathers of Rotary-Ukraine, Mr. Hewko, who spent much time and even personal funds organizing the Kyiv club, and Mr. Kulyk, who was the charter president.

Speaking during the banquet, Mr. Hewko said the work had been gratifying and that the organization's potential in Ukraine had exceeded his expectations.

"When I look back today at the wonderful growth and development of the Rotary movement in Ukraine my heart is filled with great satisfaction for time well spent," explained Mr. Hewko. "The streamlined private assistance channel which we have established through Rotary for conducting humanitarian aid and the various international contacts which became possible for Kyiv Rotarians have resulted in invaluable aid and comfort for countless needy in Ukraine."

Since that first club appeared on the Ukrainian horizon a decade ago, Rotary Clubs have sprung up in 35 Ukrainian cities, including throughout western Ukraine in cities such as Lviv - which had representatives of its own initiative group on hand when the Kyiv club was chartered - Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne and Ternopil. A Kharkiv club, the first in the eastern oblasts, was formed in 1993. The newest Ukrainian Rotarians are found in Dnipropetrovsk, and the first Crimean club is scheduled soon for Sudak.

Rotary has grown so much in Ukraine and Eastern Europe over the last decade that in 2001 Rotary International formed a separate Eastern Europe District, consisting of Ukraine, Poland and Belarus. Next year Petro Kaskadanov, a Ukrainian from the Lviv club will become the district's second president.

The mottos of the members of the Rotary movement - "Service above self" and "We do things that people think just happen - accurately reflect the way in which the Ukrainian clubs have approached their charitable work. During its decade of existence in Ukraine, the Rotary movement already has several exceedingly notable accomplishments under its collective belt.

In 1996 the Kyiv club, with active support from UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the Ukrainian Red Cross and Ukraine's Ministry of Health, organized a nationwide polio vaccination program for infants and toddlers, which resulted in the inoculation of 4 million Ukrainian children (98.5 percent) from the age of 3 months to 4 years.

The initiative was part of a worldwide Rotary International project called Polio Plus, which is funded by Rotary International and administered by UNICEF.

The Kyiv Rotarians, the most active of Ukraine's groups, also developed an ophthalmologic project in conjunction with the Rotary Clubs of Pennsylvania, which brought a group of Rotarian eye doctors to Ukraine in November 1992, where they conducted more than 100 operations and donated medical equipment worth $15,000.

The Kyiv club also organized a children's cardiology center at the Amosov Cardiology Center in Kyiv, which was the first to perform operations on infants age 2 months to 2 years with congenital heart defects. The center came about after two Kyiv Rotarians who are also heart surgeons, Ilya Yemets and Andrii Mazur, visited Australia as part of that country's Rotary-sponsored professional exchange program. The Australian club, as well as clubs in Canada and the U.S., contributed to a project equipping the larger cardiology center with modern medical equipment. The Clarkston Rotarians alone gathered $420,000 worth of equipment for the project.

On a smaller scale, in its most recent project the Kyiv Club helped the Bila Tserkva orphanage for children affected with cerebral palsy with a new minibus for its needs, including transportation of the handicapped children.

In Kharkiv, the Rotarians of the city cooperated with Rotary Club No. 1930 in Germany to obtain school textbooks, audiovisual materials and copying machines for 26 schools and six teacher-training institutes in Ukraine that emphasize the German language.

The list of prominent businessmen and professionals who belong to the Rotary movement in Ukraine is extensive. It includes individuals who have access to the highest levels of government and the professional world, such as Oleksander Chalyi, today the state secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a former Ukrainian ambassador to NATO; former Minister of Defense and current National Deputy Ihor Shmarov; National Deputy Mykola Onyshchuk; Volodymyr Mostovyi, editor-in-chief of Dzerkalo Tyzhnia, Ukraine's most prestigious newspaper; and renowned attorney Yevhen Kubko.

The clubs of Rotary are autonomous organizations that pay dues to Rotary International. They take upon themselves the responsibility to use their money-raising activities to help the needy and the sick. Meetings are generally held once a month during breakfast or lunch at a local restaurant and include a guest speaker. Club officers are annually changed in full. All new members must be sponsored by a member in good standing and be voted in by a majority - but only after the candidate has been observed at three consecutive meetings. There is also a limit of two representatives from each profession, which is done to ensure a good representation of professional fields. Many of the groups have extensive traditions, their own songs and mottos.

Rotary International, the coordinating body of the local clubs, coordinates projects on the global scale and obtains its financing from the dues-paying local clubs. Headquartered in Evanston, Ill., the international body has identified three major areas of charitable work: student exchange programs, humanitarian aid and international medical programs.

As part of the third program, it was a major player in the successful effort to vaccinate against smallpox and wipe the virus from the face of the earth - a project that is virtually complete today.

Rotary International, which today numbers 1.2 million members who belong to 30,000 clubs organized in 155 countries that are committed to democratic values, was founded in Chicago in 1905. The idea developed from a group of closely acquainted businessmen who for some time had gathered at each other's homes in rotating sequence (hence the name Rotary) for fellowship and discussion. At some point it was proposed that the friends formalize their get-togethers and give them a concrete purpose, and the Rotary movement was born.

Mr. Hewko said that today Rotary International is very happy with the Ukrainian Rotary movement. He specifically noted the exceptional work of Kyiv's charter president.

"Rotary International is very satisfied with the programs and the work of the Ukrainian clubs," explained Mr. Hewko. "A good part of the reason for this is the effort that Volodymyr Kulyk, the first president of the Kyiv club, gave. He set the proper tone and set the highest standards, which are now being followed."

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