Every year, Rotary International holds a convention, with delegates gathering from all over the world to discuss their humanitarian goals and approaches. This summer, the convention was held in Montreal, Canada, at the Palais des Congrès in Old Montreal. After a busy weekend of convention meetings, plenary sessions, and speeches, many Rotarians wander into the Exhibition Hall to visit booths of various organizations.

A team of volunteers from Montreal, coordinated by Gaétan Tremblay, put together an impressive display booth for TPRF—exhibiting banners, slide shows, DVDs, and publications.

Ten volunteers worked in shifts during the five days of the Convention, greeting everyone who stopped by the TPRF booth. Berthe Provencher spoke about her experience as a volunteer: “I was pleased to meet so many Rotarians from around the world. From Mumbai to Argentina, from Nigeria to Tasmania, Sri Lanka to the U.S., Rotarians are friendly business people with a lot of heart. They are eager to improve the health and welfare of people all over the world, and so many were pleased to stop by our booth and find out more about The Prem Rawat Foundation. The lovely banners with pictures of the Food for Peopleproject and of children from other countries attracted a lot of attention, as did the slide show. With Rotarians, we found a lot of common ground in our desire to make a positive change in the world, and perhaps some future projects to partner on.”   

“I have a fond memory of two Nigerian women I met,” said volunteer Jennifer Boire. “One woman told me about her desire to improve life in her village by building a borehole so the people could have a source of clean water. I was happy to give her a TPRF business card and invite her to visit the website to see if her project was a good match for one of our grants.”

A worldwide organization of more than 1.2 million business, professional, and community leaders, Rotary Clubs have similar goals to TPRF, which focuses its humanitarian-aid efforts on providing the essential needs of food and clean water to people most in need, whether due to extreme poverty or a natural disaster.

So far, TPRF has collaborated with Rotary Clubs three times. In 2008, the Foundation partnered with the Sierra Vista Rotary Club to help raise $61,000 to provide sustainable and permanent sources of clean water for 40,000 people in Niger. Collaboration with Rotary Club Lahore Mozang helped raise $20,000 to provide clean drinking water for 60 schools in the Punjab region of Pakistan serving over 20,000 students. In 2010, a third collaboration, this time with the Rotary Club of Rancho Santa Fe and Water for Sudan, provided $30,000 to build three water wells in Southern Sudan.

All the volunteers expressed how much they enjoyed helping at the Convention. Cheyda Haramein talked about how much she learned in preparing to help out at the TPRF booth: “What a discovery! I had no idea how much Prem Rawat's vision of breaking the poverty cycle had already improved the lives of thousands of people around the world. I was very moved by that.”

Speaking for the whole team, Jennifer reported: “It was a joyful learning experience. It made us feel very proud of Prem Rawat and privileged to participate in raising awareness of his work.”

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