History of
Rotary in Cyprus
Part of our
History
of Rotary in Asia Section
Also a Part of our Section on the History of
Rotary in Europe
Rotary in Cyprus
Cyprus today has 16 Clubs. The first Rotary Club in
Cyprus was established in 1938 in Nicosia, at the
initiative of a small group of distinguished Cypriot
businessmen and professionals who had seen Rotary work
abroad. The group included Costas Manglis, Zenon
Pierides, Theodoros Artemis. Sir Mehmet Mounir, Stelios
Georgallides, George Poulias and others. The club
charter was presented to the club by the then Governor
Arthur Merton and the first President was Rot. N E
Disney.
Cyprus then,
became part of District 195, which included Egypt,
Lebanon and certain other Countries of the Middle East.
Possibly
because of the great war of 1940-45, there was a big
time-gap between the establishment of the first RC in
Cyprus and the second ¡V which was the
RC of Limassol established in 1951, followed by the RC of LCA organised
in 1953 by the then Rotarian Mayor of Larnaca Zenon
Pierides who had been one of the founder members of the
Nicosia club and who later served as Director of RI.
About the
same timework was started on the establishment of the RC
of Famagusta, which received its charter in 1954.
There
followed another pause of fifteen years and in 1969
Paphos acquired its own Rotary club, to be followed next
year, in 1970, by Kyrenia.
Again there
was a lull until 1982 when there started another round
of new clubs. Today Cyprus has 16 Rotary clubs, with a
total membership of over 800 Rotarians (of whom a number
are women).
The Rotary
clubs of Cyprus today come under District 2450 (formerly
District 195) which also includes Bahrain, Egypt,
Jordan, Lebanon and the Sudan with a total of 128 clubs
and a membership exceeding 3740.
Up to now,
Cyprus has given the District 9 Governors namely C.
Manglis, Z. Pierides, N.Demetriou, M.Agrotis,
M.Theodossiou, Phoebus Zachariades, Leandros Zachariades,
Christodoulos Karakannas and Doros Jeropoulos.
From time to
time the 16 RC of Cyprus hold joint meetings at which
they discuss matters of common interest under the
umbrella of a Coordination Committee which includes the
PDGs, the Asst Governors and all Club Presidents of the
year.
Two Rcs of
Cyprus are functioning ¡§in exile¡¨ away from their
original ¡§territories¡¨ from which they were expelled
in 1974 by the invading Turkish Forces which, alas, even
now continue to occupy about one-third of the Republic
of Cyprus, ignoring Security Council Resolutions calling
on Turkey to remove itself from the Island.
All the Rcs
of Cyprus are functioning quite well, carrying out
useful projects and rendering good service to their
communities, a matter for which they have been
repeatedly praised by HE the President of the Republic
of Cyprus and for which they enjoy wide public support.
Examples of
projects include an Old Age Hostel established in
Limassol, a Deaf School established in Nicosia, a Forest
of Friendship in Larnaca, Blood Banks Nursery gardens,
Libraries, Scholarships and many smaller projects. They
also promoted various Island campaigns, including a Road
Safety campaign, a Save our Forests campaign, a Preserve
Planet Earth campaign and a Donation of Human Tissue
Campaign.
It should be
noted that side by side with the RCs, in most cases
there operate Inner Wheel Clubs for the ladies of
Rotarians and also Rotaract Clubs and Interact Clubs
catering for the youth.
Individually each Rotary club has to its credit a wealth
of projects carried out in its community.
Evidently Rotary's ideal of Service to our fellow
human beings seems to find a warm place in the
hearts of Cypriots who are by nature friendly and
hospitable people, and feel happy offering help and
service to our fellow human beings.
Member, Rotary Global History "RGHF Committee"
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