Rotary's People of Action: Champions of Inclusion

Welcome everyone to Cape Town, South Africa and to this event celebrating Rotary International Champions of Inclusion. Round of applause again. That's why we're here. Today's honorees demonstrate what happens when people of action come together to identify problems, create a vision of how it can be solved, then partner with the community to deliver fasting and lasting change. By placing a greater emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion, we have an opportunity to come to terms with our past and build a future where everyone is welcome, everyone has the support that they need to fully participate and everyone is respected and valued. This is the global path of reconciliation, progress and hope. To reach this destination, it helps to have a supportive guiding leader and we have her here. I had a great conversation with her. It is the CEO of the Desmond Lee Legacy Foundation. Please put your hands together for Janet. Desmond and Lea Tutu Legacy Foundation is just absolutely delighted to have partnered with Rotary International tonight in support of the extraordinary example set by the Champions of Inclusion, the real VIPs of our evening tonight. You know, Archbishop Tutu taught us that as much as human beings have a capacity for evil, we are fundamentally made for goodness, for love and compassion and it was his courageous action that showed us that righteous anger is more powerful than raw power. He refined the art of listening, learning and contemplation and transformed them into his unique ability to courageously speak truth to power and always stand for justice. To tackle the challenges of our time effectively, we're going to need both technical development solutions as well as a new wave of action driven by courage, capacity and compassion at a societal level. It's my absolute pleasure to introduce the President of Rotary International, Jennifer Jones, as well as bring back our host Siv and welcome Neo Mokopa from the Nelson Mandela Foundation. Why is inclusion and diversity so important? Thank you. I'd like to start. The need for inclusion is a universal need. When you think about the history of people moving throughout this world, there has been a need to accommodate difference since there's been a world to migrate through. The countries and societies that do this well, that have really profoundly well-developed societies, take in people who are different from what they have, what they know, what they do, and they take advantage of that rich difference. At the same time though, when you look around the world in different societies and each society is different and every community is different, what seems to be common is that in most societies there are portions or peoples who are marginalized, who are segregated, who are treated as external to the broader us, and we need to work against that. As part of the work that we do at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in mobilizing Nelson Mandela's legacy towards finding sustainable solutions to some of these problems, we've come to realize that inclusion is a necessary precondition for justice to happen. It can't happen without it. It's absolutely necessary. The way that we understand and approach notions of inclusion is through what we call a social bonding praxis. By a social bonding praxis, really at the bottom of it, what it really is is about amplifying people's power. It's about amplifying people's power. We don't see ourselves as saviors in the work that we do, especially when we're going into communities and neighborhoods. We're not saviors. We're enablers is how we identify ourselves. We've also realized that it's important, as it's always been, to work with people. Even when there are significantly dysfunctional portions of the state and organs and otherwise, it's important to work with them anyways and find individuals and levels and et cetera. It's important to work with capital often. In some ways, in particular circumstances, it's unavoidable as well. It's also important to bring capital in, private business and otherwise. It's important to work with other civil society organizations and to collaborate, but most importantly, it's important to work with community-based organizations. What I'm describing is the need to create partnerships, because we can't do it on our own. The partnership, as we unfold it, at the center of it is the creation of a common good. We take the framework of what a common good may be in a different context than otherwise from community-based organizations. They have the insights. They have the knowledge. They know what needs to happen. They know how it needs to happen, too. It's also about acknowledging that we're going to make mistakes. Working with people is hard. Working across differences is hard. We need to listen to each other and intentionally listen to each other. We also need to compromise. What does this look like in practice? As an example, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, we went out into different communities with food packs, three months' worth of food packs that would feed about a family of three or five in that space. We thought we were doing good work. We're going around the country, different provinces and otherwise, and here's food, and here's food, and here's food, but then we realized that people have more needs. We listened to them. This one particular community in Limpopo said they actually don't have water, so how can they cook this food? It was important for us to build a borehole then. Our partners at the time understood that, and we achieved that. We built a borehole, two boreholes actually, and now they have water. I'm also curious about you, Janet, and your work with the Duterte Foundation. How have you approached this question of inclusion? Yeah, it's interesting. I was thinking earlier today, so April in South Africa, we recognize on the 27th of April our Freedom Day, so the first democratic election was held in 1994. I was thinking today, the Arch, I think he was 63 when he got to vote for the first time, and he said it was like falling in love, and then he went on to say that we could be the rainbow people of South Africa, and this idea of being the rainbow people has really gone out of fashion in our society today, but if I think back to the origin of the term, he led a march of 30,000 people in 1989 to the Grand Parade, which is right around the corner, and it was a multi-racial, multi-faith march at the height of apartheid, and he said in front of this crowd, look at us. Here we are, black and white. We are defying the logic of separation, and that is what being rainbow people is all about, and so I was really thinking about that today and then thinking about, in particular, the legislation that's just passed in Uganda, the anti-homosexuality bill, and how grateful I am for the fact that we walked the journey of inclusion that was particularly when we got to choose how we would create our country, that we created a country in which every single person mattered, in which the Bill of Rights recognizes every identity as being valid and needing to be protected, and so that's sort of an ethos I think we've got to move through the world with, which is that every human life is precious, and that every single opportunity to get to know each other is an opportunity to really learn something profound about our shared humanity. You know, the term used in South Africa and that the arts used a lot was Ubuntu, that you're a person fundamentally made up by your relationships with other people, and there's something so powerful in that idea because it means that the minute we exclude or we dehumanize, it means we're doing something as well to ourselves. We're dehumanizing ourselves. We're excluding the opportunity for really understanding what a full human scope of humanity can be. So that's, yeah, that's really where we're coming from in our work, but Jennifer, I would love to hear from you. So one thing that's a huge problem in South Africa is xenophobia, and I think we've got to have a massive voice in South African society that says Ugandan refugees are welcome here, that we will stand up, we can protest what's happening in Uganda, but until South Africa is safe for asylum seekers and refugees, then we are no better in protecting the rights of sexual minorities, sexual and gender minorities, and so I think we have to look very clearly in the mirror at how our society can do much better at stepping up to the plate. I was going to ask Jennifer, you're the leader of Rotary International, which is an enormous organization spread all around the world, and so how does inclusion and diversity play out in your work? Well, and to the point of how do South Africans, so to your point, how do South Africans have a voice, how does the rest of the world have a voice? And one of the great things that I love about our organization is that we represent more than 200 countries in geographical areas. Diversity's been one of our core values forever, and it's really only been recent times that inclusion and equity have been part of what we've been entering more into the conversation on, and it's so important because it is about knocking down barriers, and you mentioned, you know, going out of fashion. Diversity doesn't go out of fashion. Equity and inclusion, maybe some people think are coming into fashion, but it's not. It's who we need, how we need to be for people to arrive as their true, authentic selves, and that's what we're seeing in our organization right now is far more conversation about removing the barriers, having our clubs look around their communities to see who's missing, who needs to be part of the conversation, because diverse perspective is our superpower. If we can look at things from different angles and not all from one, you know, one vantage point, we bring a kaleidoscope of opinion together, and that's what makes us stronger, that's what makes our world better. So I want to throw it back to the two of you for a second, and people who are not always included, that we look beyond, how do we do a better job of bringing them back in, or in, all together? I'm happy to jump in. I think a big part of it is acknowledging collective illusions that we have about each other, the ways that we've taught these narratives about those people, what those people believe, what they do, what they want, you know, and it's only mainly through dialogue and understanding that we have to have a common center. For instance, today is the anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King's assassination, and, you know, after he was assassinated, there was a week of riots in 100 cities all across the US, and James Baldwin came on camera, on TV, and said, you know, what is this all about? We want what you want. You know, we're the same people. We've all lost someone here. We've all lost the future that was going to be built, and similarly with Chris Honey, who was assassinated on the 10th of April. Nelson Dulles said a similar thing, and he said it quite poetically. He said that we've all lost Chris Honey, and he called on both black and white people in the country to go and attend the funeral, the memorials and otherwise, because we've all lost someone. Yeah, I mean, I was just thinking, there's such power to curiosity, and how wonderful it would be if we all approached the world with a sense of genuine curiosity about the full extent of our human experience, and really could imagine constantly learning about the wonders of humanity, and the wonders of all of our different diversities. I think, yeah, if I could leave sort of with one ethos, it's to be genuinely curious about other human beings. Love that. Lastly, how can we get the message to the people that need to hear it? Because look at this room that we're in, and how can we get it to the right people? Because we have 11 official languages in this country, but how can we get it to the right houses, the right homes, the right ears? Because the person doesn't want to change, they don't want to listen to this kind of stuff, really. I think the first step is finding that commonality, and understanding that we have the same desires. I think once you kind of reach that, once you kind of reach those, I'm going to say, perceived existential differences, it's a lot easier than to agree on other things. We can agree that this is an important conversation, for instance. We can agree that we all want a particular kind of future. I think by coming together and acknowledging that basis, then the other conversations, the more complicated, more complex ones. But it's also about acknowledging that maybe you don't actually have the answer, and listen to the people that you claim you need to change, or you need to change your perspectives, your beliefs and whatnot. Listen. Maybe there's another space that you also need to acknowledge about your own beliefs about otherness and other people. Guys, thank you so much. I really, really enjoyed that. I'll see you guys on social media. Amazing. Guys, thank you so much. It's great to hear these different, unique conversations, and really talking to people who've been in this space. Thank you so much for being here. But what I did take away from this discussion is the need to have open, continued dialogue about inclusion, and keep finding ways of broadening participation in those conversations and problem solving. So thank you so much for being here, and I look forward to chatting with you guys. Thank you, Sid. And to demonstrate the power of inclusion, we want to introduce our first two honorees. In Brazil and throughout the world, integrating transgender people into the mainstream and providing them growth for opportunity benefits everyone. Addison from Brazil will share with you why this is true. It takes love to be able to live. It takes peace to smile and rain to make it bloom. It took challenges and experience for me to appreciate and apply them, these thoughts, to my own journey. I am a cisgender, LGBTQ+, 43 years old, proud proletarian. In 2017, I faced a series of major challenges. I suffered bone degeneration and had hip prosthesis. This forced me to leave a 20-year career in the global financial market. But that same year, hope came into my life, because my only niece, Antonella, was born. She inspired me to find a new path as an educator and a leader, seeking for equal and safe paths for others like me. Brazil desperately needs help walking that path. We are a nation of more than 200 million people, 51% women, 56% black. 24% have some sort of disabilities and 12% identify themselves as an LGBTQ person. But we also have a history of colonialism and slavery and cultural reluctance to embrace the full character of our people. My DEI conversations began in 2019 when I was a Rotary Fellowship Board member. People told me they wanted a membership reflecting the diversity of Brazil, one that embodied faith in the organization, personal dignity, and a willingness to be vulnerable. In 2020, I encouraged a Rotarac club in Sao Paulo countryside to highlight the risk of in the LGBTQ community to Rotary International. And another Rotarac club in the south, in a partnership with an NGO for trans, sold t-shirts printed with I am. These raised funds for professional training projects dedicated to the trans community in Brazil, who are so stigmatized they resort to prostitution to survive. So this is a matter of life and death. The disturbing truth is that trans people are murdered in Brazil at the highest rate in the world and 76% of them are black. We also learn through exploring the DEI process that we need to confront and defeat social barriers and stigmas at their core to have lasting impact. I have learned that we need to continue the dialogues for peace and understanding to confront local LGBT phobia. I saw how fear continues to obstruct the DEI path, but I believe with proper training we can achieve progress and respect. In May 2022, all this work culminated in Brazil's Diversity Equity and Inclusion Committee, CDI Brazil. I am proud to serve as the first CDI president. We established a governance work in five areas of service and we made education as our primary focus. We serve as a consultative national group for all Rotary districts and its leaders. In October 2022, we celebrated when 27 out of 31 governors designated DEI chairs. Last year, CDI Brazil discovered a local Rotary club that had already been formed within a Paralympic training center. This club, whose most members have some sort of disabilities, gave us insights and inroads into the disabled community in Brazil. Through this broader partnership, we created a social media campaign called 20 Signs for Inclusion and celebrating deaf people within the disability community. But how we should encourage our clubs to learn, adapt and welcome more diverse people? I thought it was important that I learn sign language to support the project's publicity and so I did. CDI Brazil comprises people who want to belong, who make room for others and acknowledge our shared humanity. Together, we weave a fabric called purpose. These ribbons interwining CDI Brazil's logo represent people who felt comfortable sharing with me their true identities. Our fabric is sewn from stories with opportunities to fight for change and to become leaders. Our community is a beacon of the difference we can make together and we must tell the world that we exist. Cam Stewart from Canada has been doing this for about 23 years in the field of diversity, inclusion and human rights, especially focused on the indigenous population and inclusion. Relationships are built at the speed of trust. Many of you have heard of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Inspired by South Africa's experience, the Commission's purpose, which ran from 2008 to 2015, was to document the history and lasting impact of Canadian Indian residential school system. I attended Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission events to listen to indigenous people and elders. It was here I discovered the real history of residential schools, systemic discrimination, Canada's colonization and the ongoing impacts these have had on indigenous youth, families and communities. Throughout my career, I received various awards, but it was not until I was honoured with an eagle feather and later gifted the name of Magusta Pinakum, Red Morning, which at the time I knew was my calling, to advance indigenous inclusion in Canada. And I keep these items close to my heart and I use them daily. I was sharing these insights with government and businesses when the Rotary District Governor asked me to support outreach to our local indigenous communities. Our District Indigenous Relations Committee is a standalone committee and is unique in Rotary because it has representation from non-rural Indigenous leaders and its strategic plan was even consecrated in a traditional pipe ceremony. It facilitates training and provides support for Rotary and indigenous communities to co-create engagement opportunities. A community practice group has now emerged which includes over 100 members interested in being leaders of indigenous inclusion for their clubs. And as our efforts progressed, it was one of our local elders who taught us, relationships are built at the speed of trust. The committee has hosted opportunities for Rotarians and indigenous leaders to meet both on reserve and in urban areas, to learn about each other and each other's dreams and build trusting relationships. It was a young Blackfoot artist who developed the logo to promote our joint work. She portrayed two hands shaking on a mutual level, signifying building trust and friendship within the traditional medicine wheel image, representing our commitment to view our work through an indigenous lens. By building relationships with our indigenous neighbours, our clubs are creating a more welcoming inclusive culture. To date, 16 clubs have directly participated with six nations and many urban indigenous groups. A youth focus interact club was formed at one of the reserve schools and indigenous groups are cooperating on projects, making programs and services more accessible and relevant to their communities and members. Elders and knowledge keepers regularly participate in Rotary events, bringing greetings, prayers and their wisdom. And as these relationships strengthen, various other organizations are being brought into projects such as municipalities and businesses. Indeed, relationships are built at the speed of trust. All my relations. This event marks an important milestone for Rotary, where we recognize forward thinking members of our organization who have made good on our promise to put diversity, equity and inclusion top of mind in everything we do. And what's most powerful about the people of action honorees we celebrate here is that they do not stand alone. Behind them are their fellow members, clubs and service partners who help bring their projects to life. And beside them are the communities they serve, who are essential to everything that we do in Rotary. Our global movement fearlessly faces challenges on the same magnitude as those confronted by Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Our people of action don't think of service projects as something we do for people. We design them as collaborations with people. But achieving inclusivity in practice is really the, it's the true test. And the projects we're putting in place and we're going to spotlight through these honorees show a really a path forward, a hopeful path forward to a future where people who've been historically ignored, overlooked and stigmatized become essential agents of change. We cannot hope to create positive and sustainable change unless we champion inclusion and equity. And now I'd like to welcome our next people of action honoree. Rosemary Nambose founded the Angel Center for Children with Special Needs after learning about the lack of support and social service for children with disabilities and their caregivers in Uganda. This organization now advocates for inclusive education for the disabled population. Let me tell you about a beautiful child. Aubrey was born with a disability. His parents later created hope and support for other couples with special needs children. Growing up in an environment where people with disabilities were discriminated against and there was a taboo against people with disabilities appearing in public, I never considered that one day I might have such a child with a disability. No parent starts off prepared to raise a special needs child, but the experience elicits profound strength and a new ability to deal with extreme emotions. This is especially true in Uganda where I have encountered many stereotypes and cultural barriers, even concerns about witchcraft. Discovering who I was and how I could resume my life again was not easy. But once I reached that point of awareness, I wished to use my experience to help others with first-hand information. I knew the first step was defending children with special needs. Armed with information and determination, I founded Angel Center for Children with Special Needs in Uganda, Wakiso District. The initiative upholds the rights of children with special needs and ensures that caregivers raising these children are supported with psychosocial support and community-based rehabilitation. This is how it works. Our vision, a society which integrates children with special needs must fully realize their potential. Then our mission is to be the voice by breaking the silence and fear of disability in communities through increasing access to information and service delivery. We need to give disability a human face, so the values and dignity that exist within the beautiful, unique children is seen and embraced by society. Since 2012, we have supported over 150 children and 200 vulnerable households raising children with intellectual disabilities. Among them, we are looking at Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism. Our Center of Excellence of Disability in Uganda hosts the Early Learning for Children with Special Needs. We have also advanced the rights of young people with intellectual disabilities in employment and equal and fair opportunities. Through the collaboration with potential employers, we are connecting young persons with intellectual disabilities to decent employment. Yeah, I knew from my personal experience that caregivers needed support in terms of counseling, respite care, connecting them to livelihood opportunities. And then there's the curse of mass killing. I have passionately amplified the tragic practice which has claimed the lives of many children with intellectual disabilities. Few human rights defenders in Uganda dare to challenge the community in this practice. I recently wrote a book to provide guidance for care-taking special needs children in Uganda and the rest of the world, which continues to regard disability as a source of shame. It teaches parents how to flourish with self-care. To our son, Abrel, you have been our greatest teacher in the family. We affirm our love for you. We shall stand by and defend you from all forms of exclusion to live a productive and happy life. So now I'd like to welcome who's been an active community volunteer for the past 50 years. With her most recent project, she's conducted musical training and therapy for displaced children. Every one of us has a place for music in our heart, in our lives. In Izmir, Turkey, where I live, I work with children. Most are from Izmir, but many are from displaced families of ethnic origins, Roman and especially Syrian. Izmir, like many other cities, welcomes Syrian families and others who flee war and take refuge in my beautiful country. Since January 2022, I taught around 700 children, a third of whom were from displaced families, and saw music's power in breaking barriers to build stronger communication and understanding across communities. It's music that crosses bridges and builds harmony, and it helps children express and share their innermost feelings so that trauma diminishes. When we work together in class, we start by singing lullabies, the ones our mothers used to sing to calm, reassure, and comfort us. So imagine us in class in Turkish first, then we hear a very special German lullaby by Johannes Brahms, the one that my mother used to sing with Turkish words. Another one comes from Halil in Arabic. So we sit back, we hold hands, we close our eyes, and we listen to him. We are delighted that he volunteers to use music to share his faraway childhood with us. Music makes him feel in harmony. We listen to Beethoven's piano sonata, here individual expression and sharing of thoughts and feelings are emphasised. Music teaches children the very important notion of listening closely, and more importantly, expressing themselves. In music classes, children share experiences and feel in harmony. They learn the fundamental elements of music and have fun at the same time. Music inspires them to imagine. Like a therapy session, they express, share innermost feelings. Teachers use music to assist the newcomers, and in other disciplines, especially in math. Schools make more chorus projects. And the most precious result, listening to each other. Listening together as we make music. Hearing, really hearing what others say. We can communicate and understand each other better, much better. Establish loving, lasting, and peaceful relationships. I can't tell you how important this is, because children, particularly of displaced families, are not visitors to our beautiful country. They are now a part of us. Music is a precious gift. By sharing this precious gift, we can help these children feel part of us, part of our culture, while remembering their own, and we can make the most beautiful and harmonious music together, always. Absolute pleasure to get to introduce the final two awardees tonight. Sarita Shukla has dedicated her life to uplifting the transgender community in New Delhi, India. She leads the Transgender Empowerment Project named Astitva at Pahal, nurturing lives. How would you feel if your parents disowned you? What would be your state of mind if those around you kept mocking you? It is indeed traumatizing to even visualize such a situation in life. Unfortunately, this is the reality for some people, and we can understand it would push anyone to depression and isolation. Where I live, this is often the experience for transgender people. In India, we officially have more than 6 million people, referred to as lakhs, but the undisclosed count is much more. In 2010, I met a woman who had a profound impact on my life. I was working on a supporting project that supported six workers. At first, Rinku was reluctant to open up, but eventually she shared a moving story. She was rejected by her family, who said she couldn't achieve anything because of her identity. Rinku told me, I am a transgender, and then she said something that changed me. There are so many organizations and people who work for children, old people, disabled, and challenged. However, no one works for us and our well-being. The day someone will think about us, probably this world may be a better place for us to live. From that moment, I decided to work for this community, and it became my passion and purpose in life. In India, transgender people are not accepted in society. Their rejection in life starts with their own family. They are beaten, bullied, and emotionally tortured. This forces them to abandon education in search of survival. The things they crave most are love, respect, and self-identity, just like us. They want to work, but no one offers them the opportunity. They can be left with no option but to force themselves into sex work or begging. And in sex work, they are highly prone to HIV. So in 2011, I started working through an organization called Pehel Nurturing Lives. It is a not-for-profit mentorship organization for youth of all genders. I am proud that the first employee in Pehel was transgender. Gandhi's quote, be the change you wish to see in the world, was the inspiration for us. I have worked with thousands of transgender people to promote HIV awareness and prevention. The objective of our work through Project Astatva is to bring this community out of sex work and begging. We work to counsel, train, and mentor them so they can enter mainstream society in government and corporate jobs. We offer gender sensitization workshops in all the organizations and companies before placing them into jobs. We also deliver these workshops in colleges and universities to build more awareness and acceptance from the younger generation so that in the future, there will be less discrimination. These opportunities have brought respect and joy that many in the transgender community never thought possible. These successful stories create role models for other transgender women and men, encouraging them to abandon risky livelihood and take up safer jobs in society. It gives them courage and a conviction to belong. I aspire to reach out to many more in this community. Our belief is that every individual is a human being and we want to create society where transgender people are treated with respect and equality and above all to ensure they feel accepted, never disowned. Thank you. Our final honoree for the evening, Andre Hadley-Maria, has been a Rotary member since 2005. She was the first black president in her 97-year-old Rotary club. She's the founding mentor and coach of Spark Thomasville, a 12-week business incubator program for entrepreneurs from underserved communities. My story is about recovering from a place of brokenness and finding hope. It has been a long, lonely journey that began when I lost my mother at the age of 17. Losing my mother to cancer and our home to alcoholism, I wanted a better path for my life. The road led to a very special place. It allowed me to focus my energies on helping life's most precious designs, children, to achieve their dreams. My life work is dedicated to helping children who are like me, to see possibilities and not be limited by circumstances. By healing my brokenness, I was then prepared to help others. Living in a small town during the 1960s, there were limited options for people of color. As children, two of my closest friends and I sat in a ditch and vowed to return to our hometown as adults to help our community and to bring positive change to others. I spent 34 years in the mental health and social services field as a licensed therapist, making changes outside of a system which sometimes prevented me from helping the misunderstood, the underestimated, and those living with disabilities. By 2005, through Rotary, I discovered new possibilities which yield beauty from the ashes. At the Boys and Girls Club, I pulled together a team to help children craft stories from their own lives. We developed a youth leadership council where the kids found the courage to say, how will I know you see me and how will I know you care? Another Rotary project was even more meaningful to me. Spark Thomasville is a program in Georgia that helps young entrepreneurs jumpstart their businesses. The young men and women who participate have the passion but lack the business acumen to make it happen. With our Rotary colleagues and friends from the business world, we began mentoring and working alongside these young people, helping them build self-confidence and cultivating their belief that they could succeed with their plan. We helped them clarify their purpose. Once they understood the why of what they were doing, they could share their passions and belief in their visions, potential, and purpose. They continued to grow in competence and in knowledge. Small steps were major accomplishments, moving them closer and closer to their dreams. All of this work is now paying off. Recently, in Spark Thomasville, we launched 29 new entrepreneur businesses. That's something to clap on. Just as I saw potential in these young entrepreneurs, in 2020, our Rotary district leaders discerned something in me and requested that I lead the effort to implement the Rotary's diversity, equity, and inclusion plan. Now, as the first African-American district governor nominee for my district, and the first woman of color in the district, convincing 69 clubs to embrace this effort was a mountain to climb. Starting with a small group, we took personal inventories, evaluating our own biases, determining if we had the will to change. It is essential to listen, to understand, and to acknowledge how acceptance and love underpins all relationships. Making progress in DEI meant, first, loving ourselves, knowing ourselves, knowing who we are, owning our history. Authentic conversation became the catalyst for change. In 2023, 29 clubs are embracing this change, so I am proud of where we are. We must remove the barriers, and we must remove any shame that we have, to help others who do not yet know the why of the way. Someone once said, lift high your candle, let others share your spark. Lest you and I behold too late the trail before us dark. Let us light the way, sharing our stories, helping others find their place of hope, one relationship at a time. Today, we have honored six individuals for the actions they have taken to lift communities and empower people, and demonstrate to the members of our organization and the world that diversity, equity, and inclusion are more than words. They are powerful tools that can make an immediate difference in lives everywhere, and they can help shape the kind of people we want to become. To be at our most effective, and we know that our people of action have to adapt to the world around us. The words diversity, equity, and inclusion, they don't just appear out of the middle of nowhere. They rose as our world was suffering with COVID-19 through the pandemic, and the most vulnerable everywhere were affected the most. And they rose because we all saw with our own eyes how far the world needs to go to truly reconcile ourselves to the divisions, the divisions that remain and the pain that we sometimes inflict on each other. We can create lasting change through our acts of kindness delivered through the force of will. That's going to require us to become upstanders, advocates for people who we have long ignored, and it will be a long journey, perhaps for everyone. It requires us to leave our comfort zones and, yes, speak a little bit differently, care a little bit more about the meaning of our words. And so we do this not to enforce a code on anyone, but to touch off discovery, because in the process of understanding why certain words and phrases affect the way people think and act, we can see our world in a new way. We become a new kind of people, capable of affecting more change than ever before. So, yes, words, words, too, can be a call to action. This is a learning journey, a learning journey for all of us. And as was said earlier, we're going to make mistakes. There will be times that we fail to live up to our standards. It's important, though, to continue to listen, to listen and to learn. And if we take the great opportunity to reach out, to elevate leaders long overlooked, to create opportunities for everyone to succeed and thrive and see people who serve as full partners in everything that we do, including populations, not just to deliver service, but to design and implement it. If we do all of these things, we can help. We can't help, but to inspire and empower a new generation of people looking for us, to us, for leadership, looking to us when they feel the hunger to be part of something that is meaningful and essential. I have called on our organization this year to imagine Rotary because I want us to see our future through the stories that we tell and to share those stories more broadly around the world. We heard great stories tonight. I am so grateful that we had this opportunity to share our stories on stage with the Tutu and Mandela Foundations and to put our humble work in the context of their continuing commitment to real freedom, lasting peace, and equitable, sustainable progress. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Thank you to each of them. And thank you to all of you for what you do, for helping us to tell our stories. And thank you to CIV for serving as our emcee and gracious host this evening. And thank you to all of the incredible performers. My goodness, they've been amazing. And the stories of their talent. And thank you to the honorees. Thank you to each of them for their continued inspiration.