Did you know that each year, Rotary awards up to 130 fully funded fellowships for dedicated leaders from around the world to study at one of our 11 peace centers, which are located at universities all around the world? Through academic training, practice, and global networking opportunities, the Rotary Peace Centers program develops the capacity of peace and development professionals to become effective catalysts for peace. The Rotary Peace Fellowship is designed for leaders with work experience in peace and development. Our fellows are committed to community and international service and the pursuit of peace.And in this year of The Magic of Rotary, where RI President, Stephanie Urchik has asked clubs around the world to focus on the issue of Peace, and undertake Peace Initiatives, like installation of Peace Poles (https://worldpeace.org/peacepoleproject), how awesome to know that Rotary D7090 has its very own Peace Fellow, Natalija Vojno.
Natalija is the current President of the Rotary Club of R.E.S.I., and is a resident of Toronto, Canada. Natalija is a peace innovator who has worked on freshwater policy for the past decade on the local, provincial, and international scale. A former speechwriter to Ontario’s Minister of the Environment and environmentalist, she led campaigns to curb plastic and nutrient pollution in the Great Lakes. And despite heading up several non-profits with a focus on clean water conservation and peace building, she is also an Alumna of the International Christian University of Tokyo Japan and the Rotary Peace Fellow Program.
- Scott D Marcin – IPDG D7090
Natalija is a Rotarian who labels herself a Peace Innovator, and who seeks to understand Peace at a more theoretical level. She is also a strong proponent of the Rotary Positive Peace Activator (https://www.positivepeace.academy/activators) which helps clubs identify and put into action plans which help with Rotary’s peace building mission. With a strong emphasis on inclusive collaboration of peoples from diverse backgrounds and values, she works to help peoples across their differences, face their conflict and come to peaceful solutions to benefit all, creating a more peace-focused society.
Natalija, having been born in a worn torn country, has always had a desire to help stop conflict and wars, and has used her education as a Rotary Peace Fellows to address environmental issues that lead to conflict. She has used her experiences most notably in the area of water conservation and water mediation services.
A big believer that Rotarians can make a difference toward Peace by following the 4-Way Test, Natalija hopes that Rotarians will become Positive Peace Activators and evangelize about Peace more actively. She hopes that Rotarians will engage our communities, finding projects that use the 8 Pillars of Peace to guide their actions. She is a firm believer that we must build Peace one person, one community, and one nation at a time, where everyone has a chance to make a difference. And that we must be proactive and inclusive to create Peace before the conflicts and wars begin.
Although we live in a world where conflict exists in so many places, and so many people are impacted by these conflicts, as Rotarians, we are fortunate to have one of our own, like Natalija, a Rotary Peace Fellow, who is actively out there making a difference, helping to build peace in our communities.