Some work is a project with a start and an end. Some is a commitment the club renews every year. These are the second kind.
Rotary’s youth programmes
Interact
Service clubs for young people aged 12 to 18, usually based in a school and sponsored by a Rotary club. Members run their own projects and elect their own officers. It is where a great many Rotarians first encounter Rotary.
Rotaract
For adults 18 and over. Rotaract clubs are self-governing and run their own service and professional development programmes, partnered with a sponsoring Rotary club.
Rotary Youth Leadership Awards
An intensive leadership programme run at district level for young people selected and sponsored by clubs.
Youth Exchange
Students spend a term or a year living with host families abroad, attending school and representing their country. Clubs sponsor outbound students and host inbound ones.
The Rotary Foundation
Rotary’s own charitable foundation funds the work clubs cannot fund alone. District grants support local projects; global grants support larger international ones with a partner club abroad. Both are funded by member contributions, which means every rupee given comes back as project work somewhere.
Vocational service
The part of Rotary that has no obvious equivalent elsewhere: members bring their professional skills to the club’s work, and to each other. A surgeon, a builder and a chartered accountant in the same room solve a hospital equipment problem faster than any of them would alone. That is the point of a club drawn from different occupations.