The ideal of service lies at the heart of our Rotary Object. To that end Belfast Rotary recently visited a couple of organisations to explore opportunities for service in our community. The tour was organised by Business in the Community, which runs a number of very successful service projects for its membership companies designed to help them discharge their “corporate social responsibilities”. Jill and Patricia from BitC put together an excellent programme, similar to that for their member companies, under the title “Seeing is Believing”.



Our first stop was at Elmgrove Primary School in East Belfast – an area with significant social problems. There the headmaster, David Hutchinson, introduced the group of 17 Rotarians to the school’s “Learn to Read” scheme. This scheme uses volunteers to help children read on a one to one basis. Mr Hutchinson explained how successful it was in getting young children to enjoy reading and in the process increase their self-confidence. BitC has some 400 volunteers working in schools across NI for an hour each week.

Our second stop was at the Walkway Community Association at the Holywood Arches, also in East Belfast. The Centre Manager, Rachael Davison, and her enthusiastic team of volunteers described their various community programmes providing assistance to a wide variety of local groups. We found particularly interesting the Association’s work with young people engaging in anti-social behaviour, which is credited with reducing such behaviour by some 30%. The PSNI sees the Association’s work as a model for community groups elsewhere.

Both organisations illustrated the important volunteering role that Rotary members could play in the community, whether by reading with disadvantaged young children, or by contributing professional skills (and not just money) to community groups working in areas of high social need.