Rotarian Raymond Onwuegbu, immediate past President of Rotary Club of Asaba Downtown, in this Interview with Mercy Okolie and Blessing Bassey, spoke on why he joined the club. Excerpts…
What inspired you to join the Rotary Club?
Basically, we know Rotary is a non-governmental organization, I saw the things they do while I was in the university. I also have the mind to help people. So I felt, ‘how do I give back to the society?’ It’s just for me to join a Rotary club where we can continue to carry out community projects and all of that. That’s basically the reason I opted to join.
What does Rotary Club stand for?
Rotary Club is a service based organization. They support the government in helping to develop the communities around them. So wherever you find a rotary club, you see that they try to identify the needs in that place to see how they can assist the Government in carrying out such projects.
What are the core values?
First, it’s service above self. Because, in Rotary, we say the highest award you get is service above self, because you’re always helping the people before you start thinking of your own self, and there’s also what we call fellowship and community bonding. In Rotary, we don’t just believe in only helping people, we also believe in helping ourselves, having our fellowship, making it fun, because sometimes you can have so much stress at work and you go back home, the same thing. But when you attend your fellowships, you see the bond with other persons; you network with them and all of that. We also take integrity and leadership very serious, because wherever you find yourself, If you’re being inducted into a rotary club, you see the pin I’m wearing now, they’ll tell you first. If you want to do anything shady, make sure you remove that pin, , so that wherever you work in and they said this person is a member of a rotary club, you know that the person is somebody that you can trust and you can work with. Rotary helps to build your leadership skill. If you want to be a good leader, join the Rotary Club. So those are part of the core values.
How long have you been a member?
I’ve been a member for six years.
Is Rotary different from other service organizations?
Rotary is different from other service organizations because we always put service first before we put ourselves forward. And also, Rotary has helped the world in a very large way. Let’s say, for instance, polio, Rotary has been fighting polio for so many years now, and I know that every other person have been a beneficiary of that polio vaccine with us making sure that everybody gets it for free, then also the United Nations. Rotary was part of the people that formed the United Nations, and till date, we’re still working with them and trying to make sure that there’s world peace and there’s also healthy communities around.
What major projects is your club currently working on?
We’re trying to sink a borehole in a school in Abraka that’s close to Warri. We went to the school and went for a need assessment, because before we do any project, we always go there to find out what they actually need and all of that. So the principal told us that the female hostel where they have over 100 girls, there is no pipe borne water in that place. And you can imagine how unhealthy it is for the girls. So we said, Okay, let’s take it upon ourselves to do a borehole for them with two tank stanchions. So that’s what we’re working on currently.
Which project has had the biggest impact in your community?
Last year, I was the president of the Rotary club of Asaba downtown and there are two major projects. I had over 20 projects that I did in the communities but to me, the one that touched me most was the inter school quiz competition for public schools in Oshimili South local government. And why did I do that? Because we noticed that the reading culture in our youth is dying down, the use of phones and all of that is making them not to study very well.
So we said, how can we be able to bring back that reading culture? So I established that quiz competition, which was very impactful, and 14 schools were involved, and the winner got a price of N200,000 and had an IT training for three months, and also some other little gifts. Then, the other one that really touched my heart too was the donation of incubator to the Federal Medical Centre. So it was the day they celebrated Children’s Day, May 27 so we said how can we also support our community and support the growing children? The medical director had told us that they have some, but they were not enough, so sometimes they now encounter series of deaths to children. We decided to see how see how we can assist. We got one incubator which cost us about 2 million naira to get, and we donated it to the hospital. The thing that amazed me the very next day was that they started making use of it with a baby inside the incubator. Imagine if we did not bring that which means that baby wouldn’t have had a chance to survive. Those are the two key projects that.
What challenges do you face when carrying out community projects?
Most times, we know how we are, you might want to bring something good to a particular community, and the boys will come one after the other, saying you should give them what they call “”deve””, that’s what we call the sales development Levy. We are trying to bring something good to your community and you are demanding for that. It could discourage people from embarking on such project.. So we’ll face something like that, then also sustainability in the projects that you carry out.
What we try to do is we involve the community leaders, traditional leaders in that community. Because you can go, for instance, and donate decks to a school, and the next day you come back, they must have stolen all of them. So those are some of the challenges that we get to face.
How do you collaborate with local governments and other NGOs?
We either write to them or they write to us depending on who blinks first, and if the project is big and we may not be able to handle it alone, so we can get other NGOs or other organizations involved. We’ll write to them and say, Okay, this is one project that we want to carry out in this community, and it will be very impactful and beneficial and invite them to partner us. We tell them what it is going to cost us, sit at a round table and work it out.
Has there been any scholarship training, or opportunities offered by your club
Basically, it might not just be my club, but our clubs in general; there are scholarship programs that are available. Also Rotary International has a scholarship program for people to study peace and conflict resolutions in seven different universities in the world. These programs are 100% free, because rotary is going to take care of your tuition, your feeding, your accommodation, everything that concerns you. It will start in the early parts of next year; there is a message that is always sent out, not only to rotary members, our family members, but to other persons who are interested. All you need to do is fill the form, and at the end of the day if you get selected, every other thing is 100% free for you.
How does your local club here in Nigeria connect with Rotary Club internationally?
The Rotary Club in Asaba downtown and Rotary International is the same. We have our platforms where we communicate. We have a means of communication, emails and all of that. We have leaders who disseminate information from the top to the very least person. So it’s not something that is ambiguous or tedious for us. We’re just one family.
How does the Rotary Club contribute to youth development?
Rotary has been doing a lot for youths. There’s something we call Roli Rotary Youth Leadership Academy. It’s something that we organize every year. Towards the end of the year, this year is going to take place in Port Harcourt. I think its next week, before the Christmas. So we bring youth together like a boot camp for them for seven days. They’ll be there to give those trainings and all of that. They’ll do a lot of fun activities just to develop their IQ as well too. Then, we also have a youth wing of Rotary. We call them the Rotractors. Those persons are also from our youth wing that we also assist in any little way that we can when they have projects to also carry out, they meet the mother body, and we also support them, and we also organise leadership trainings for them too, which also helps them build their personality.
What partnerships have helped your club succeed in each project?
I think last year, we had a partnership program with the Delta State Government to carry out a project in one of the offices, the Office of the CIA. So I worked in the office for about two years, and I noticed that there was also no pipe borne water and the staffs in that place. The females are 45 and the male, they were just five. There is no toilet and bathroom. They start running to the shop, right, or the banks around there.
Sometimes they just go behind their cars. And it wasn’t really a good site for me, so when I left the office, I said, Okay, I’ll see what I can do to influence a project to come down there. So I think a year later, I was able to get funds. We went to sink a borehole for them, and few days ago, we officially handed it over to them. The CIA in that office mentioned to us that for over 40 years they never had a pipe borne water in that office. So those are some of the things that Rotary has come to do for our communities.
What do members get in return?
I tell people, there’s no benefit. The truth is that there are no financial benefits. The benefit that you get is self-satisfaction that you’re able to put smiles on people’s faces. If you go to some communities and you do a project there, you see the happiness on their faces.. Like the office I just spoke to you about the way those women prayed for me, and they do it each time I come around there, the way they praise me and pray for me.
It gives me that self-satisfaction you understand and it helps you to network. You understand you can build your businesses; you meet people and all of that. And because of that integrity I told you in the beginning, a lot of persons would really want to say, okay, yes, I would like to work with this person, because he’s a Rotarian and all of it. But if you’re saying you are joining so that they will pay you $1,000 and all of that, No, you’re not going to see that. To most persons, they feel you must be paid. So that is why I always tell people that there is no benefit. The only benefit is self-development, self-satisfaction, networking and making friends all over the world.
