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The
Four Way Test
Created in 1932 by Rotarian Herbert J.
Taylor (who later served as RI president)
when he was asked to take charge of a company
that was facing bankruptcy. This 24-word code
of ethics for employees to follow in their business
and professional lives became the guide for sales,
production, advertising, and all relations
with dealers and customers, and the survival of
the company is credited to this simple philosophy.
Adopted by Rotary in 1943, the
4-Way Test has been translated
into more than a hundred languages and published
in thousands of ways.
Of the things we think, say or do
1. Is it the TRUTH?
2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?
3. Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPS?
4. Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?
Rotary
Today
Rotary's most ambitious undertaking, announced
in 1985, is the Polio Plus program a massive campaign
to eradicate polio by the year 2005.
Conducted with the cooperation of national governments
and intergovernmental agencies such as the World
Health Organization (WHO) and the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Polio
collaboration in the fight against disease. Polio
Plus helps support national and regional polio
eradication programs by providing vaccine, surveillance
support and social mobilization, by the year
2005 the target date for certification
of a polio-free-world Rotarian contributions to
the global polio eradication effort will reach
a half billion US dollars.
First admitted in 1987, women
are today the fastest growing segment of Rotary
membership and increasingly hold leadership positions
within the organization. Nearly 2,000
women serve as club presidents and woman
are also rapidly assuming regional leadership
roles. Currently, some 1.2 million professional
men and women belong to more than 32,900
clubs worldwide.
Rotary continues to grow internationally. After
the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Rotary clubs
which had been disbanded during world War II were
re-stablished in central and eastern Europe.
In 1990, Rotary clubs were formed
in Russia for the first time and other former
Soviet republics soon followed. Kyrgyzstan,
once a part of the Soviet Union,
is a recent addition.
Today, Rotary International encourages its clubs
to focus on a broad spectrum of service activities
such as hunger, drug abuse prevention, polio eradication,
youth, the elderly and AIDS awareness
and education. Rotary clubs around the world are
united under the motto Service above Self. |
