Originally only male Rotarians were admitted.
The Duarte, California, club admitted women in 1977 with only their initials so that they would not be discovered by the head office, and in the end they were detected and excluded from Rotary International in 1978...
Was it legal to exclude women?
The expulsion divided the Rotarians, until in 1987 the Supreme Court of the United States, at the request of those first Rotarians, ruled that the right of women to be admitted prevailed over the right of association with whomever you want of those who only wanted to admit men .
Fair and necessary.
As you can see, today a woman is the president of Rotary International and we are already 250,000 Rotarians around the world.
What is Rotary: a social, business, philanthropic club?
It has been since it was founded by Paul Harris with three friends in 1905 in his Chicago office, where he had moved for work from his native Pennsylvania.
Did he miss his friends?
And he looked for others in Chicago: pure civil society: that simple, that human and universal.
Why were they “Rotarians”?
Because they rotated in everything: every week they met in one's office and began to invite other lawyers and other professionals: doctors, journalists, businessmen... Everything.
And don't the positions and responsibilities also rotate by turns in each club?
It was part of the spirit, which at first was just networking to create communities and serve their own, until little by little it found philanthropic objectives throughout the country, because Harris's idea was a success and it spread throughout the United States. .
And wasn't it also a club of diplomats, cosmopolitan, transversal...?
So much so that among the diplomats of 50 allied nations who approved the Charter of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945 there were... 43 Rotarians!
Instead, Franco banned Rotary in Spain during the Freemason dictatorship.
We are a transversal, inclusive, universal, philanthropic, free organization... And autocrats don't like that. Today Rotary is in 166 countries: there are 46,000 clubs around the world, and 1,400,000 Rotarians. And in Spain there are more than 4,000 Rotarians in 200 clubs.
Aren't they elitist? Aren't Rotary clubs by invitation only?
Anyone can start a Rotary club, and the dues are no higher than any gym today. But I will also tell you that it is true: we seek excellence in our interns and in our partners.
But meet for what?
The very act of coming together beyond our political and religious ideas, national identities... already generates value for those who come together to do good and for the community. We are human, and what makes us better is coming together to help each other.
Are we worth what our relationships?
But we are also proud of our universal vaccination campaigns: without Rotary, polio would not have been fought with the same success and speed...
Did you put money?
And efforts, coordination: alliances with the UN and its organizations in seven areas, such as sustainable development today. In our nearly 120-year history, we've contributed more than $5.5 billion to those campaigns. It is documented.
On the entire planet? Haven't they been banned in some country?
I will only tell you that we have Rotarians right now in Kabul and at the WHO, Unicef, Gavi (the global alliance for vaccines), the Gates Foundation... And we have collaborated, of course, against covid in 70 countries.
How did they choose you?
I was elected by the committee of 17 Rotarians representing all areas of the world, even though I was Canadian.
You were a famous television presenter, I read in your resume.
I founded a television production company and I am a doctor in Law. And my husband is a doctor who has abandoned his patients to follow me for two years touring the clubs and now he is here, in Barcelona.
Do you have Rotarians in Ukraine right now and also in Russia?
Yes we do. And I can add that they help each other right now...
Hopefully they will also help each other for peace.
I've been there and I can't tell you more. It's just that in both countries there are wonderful Rotarians doing wonderful things for others.
Some example?
We have managed to raise more than 15 million dollars in just a few days to help the victims of that war... especially the homeless children.
