By Brooke Deterline and Maxim Schrogin
This week’s Living Room Conversations note to their members details their powerful partnership with Rotary International. You might already know that “Rotary is a global network of 1.2 million…who see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change – across the globe, in our communities, and in ourselves.”
Rotarians in 35,000+ clubs worldwide create lasting change in six specific areas:
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Promote peace and conflict resolution
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Fight disease
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Provide clean water, sanitation, and hygiene
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Save mothers and children
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Support education
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Grow local economies
What you might not know is that in addition to taking action, Rotarians also, increasingly, take the time to sit together and listen to each other.
Some Rotary clubs in the United States, concerned about conflict within our own country, have begun creating a space for conversations Americans can have across our differences.
For example, the nonprofit Mediators Beyond Borders, in addition to being an official Rotary partner, is conducting workshops on the West Coast. The Rotary Club of Berkeley has done a training with Courageous Leadership, LLC, which provides people with the tools to having difficult conversations with open hearts and minds. And more trainings are planned for later in the year in partnership with Living Room Conversations.
Living Room Conversations is pairing up with the Rotary network in multiple ways, with online and in person conversations to enhance Rotary’s work and reach. Ultimately, the hope is that Rotary clubs be a locus for civil political discussion towards healing the corrosive chasm we witness today that harms our aspirations for a democratic United States.
