Peace is at the heart of Rotary’s global mission. Every year the international service organisation provides money so students can travel across the globe to study for higher degrees while learning about their host country.
But that’s only a part of the story. The students, often in their early 20s, need mentoring and other support from a Rotary member with local knowledge.
For a quarter of a century, in Leicestershire that friendly face has been that of Moira Bartlett, a member of the Rotary Club of Leicester. In those 25 years she has looked after dozens of young people from many different countries who have studied here. “We really have become lifelong friends,” she told Leicester Novus Rotary when she talked to them about her two-week trip to Japan last March.
She went to meet nine students to whom she became stand-in mother while they lived in Leicestershire. But, having been to Japan several times before — but never in the season for Japan’s world-famous cherry blossom booms — she wanted to see them, too.
With the help of the former students and their families, she saw a lot of Japan and a lot of cherry blossom. Moira said it had been great to catch up with the academics. some of whom she had not seen for several years. Most had studied English or museums at post-graduate level. Most are now teaching in Japan, although one had left academia to raise a family.
The Rotary scholarships programme had helped promote peace by enabling students to learn about English customs and culture at the same time as furthering their careers. But those who did so in Leicester would not have found it so easy without Moira, armed with bed linen and other essentials, welcoming them to various halls of residence and other accommodation in Leicester.
In giving her account of her most recent fortnight criss-crossing Japan to meet lifelong friends and to find cherry blossom, she had two vital tips for any British people holidaying in Japan; firstly before leaving Britain, to organise a rail pass to get free rail trips, including on the famous ‘bullet trains’ and secondly to eat at a traditional Japan fish market.
While giving her talk, Moira repeatedly referred to a map of Japan, which amused her because it was not printed in the same North-South orientation that most of us would recognise from an atlas or globe.
President Jim Matthews thanked Moira for her talk in formal Japanese, saying: “Domo arigato gozaimasu. before closing the meeting with the traditional Rotary toast to Rotary “fellowship and peace the world over” in the Japanese phrase “Sekaijū no majiwari to heiwa”
Before hearing Moira’s talk, members saw Jim present a ribboned badge to Ranjit Singh Mann marking his period as club president in the year that ended in June 2023. Jim also presented to a previous president Carolyn Robson a badge marking the centenary of District 1070, th grouping of about 80 Rotary clubs across central eastern England.
Last edited: 02:00 on Friday, 18/08/2023
