ROTARY VILLAGE CORPS/ROTARY COMMUNITY CORPS

One of the newer programs in Rotary's panoply of worldwide service activities and projects is the Rotary Village Corps. This new form of grass roots self-help service was initiated by RI President M.A.T. Caparas in 1986 as a means of improving the quality of life in villages, neighborhoods and communities. Frequently there is an abundance of available labor, but no process to mobilize men and women to conduct useful projects of community improvement.

A Rotary Village Corps-or Rotary Community Corps as they are called in industrialized countries-is a Rotary club-sponsored group of non-Rotarians who desire to help their own community by conducting a specific improvement project. The Rotary members provide the guidance, encouragement, organizational structure and some of the material assistance for the Rotary Village Corps, which in turn contributes the manpower to help their own community. Thus, the Rotary Village Corps provides a totally new process for Rotarians to serve in communities of great need.

Rotary Community Corps have been organized mainly in depressed ghetto areas of major cities where groups of individuals need the organizational and managerial skills of Rotarians to undertake valuable self-help community projects.

The Rotary Village Corps program offers a totally new dimension to the concept of service to improve the quality of life.