Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship Information

I mentioned a little bit about this scholarship in an earlier post I made on this blog, but I felt it warranted a bit more interest all on its own.

Rotary International is a community-based service group, whose members are often leaders of industry (read: lawyers, CEOs, bankers, etc, although there are certainly less white-collar members).  They have a lot of projects on the go, including a “stamp out polio” campaign, drinking water campaigns, and sponsoring global fellowship, which is a generic term for “getting people from different cultures together to hang out and fix some problems.”  For example, Scholars for Schools is a Valparaiso, Chile-based project that provides local schoolchildren with media libraries (books in Chile are pretty expensive), and Project Patagonia builds computer labs for schools in Argentina.

Both of these projects were started by Rotary Ambassadorial Scholars.  Scholarships range from a 3- or 6-month language and culture study (for which you can receive either $11,000 or $16,000, respectively), and the larger Academic Year or Two-Year scholarships (which provide a flat $24,000).  With this money, Scholars go to a country of their proposing and go to school (most scholarships are, not really remarkably, based on schooling).  They live and work and meet with people in this country and, while there, interact with Rotary clubs, take on some projects, and attempt to serve the community.  Ultimately, it’s a way to get young people actively reaching out to other countries, while funding their way there.

It’s not just $24,000 free dollars, however.  There are a lot of steps to take, and the Rotarians are pretty picky about who they offer their money to; after all, the money for that scholarship could be going to fund a different project, one that allows a child to learn how to read or a mother to get clean water.  So Scholars have a lot of responsibility.  But the application process is there, and there’s no age limit.  Anyone can apply.