LEON LAUGELS ARTICLE ENGLISH SUMMARY
How did you get involved in Rotary in the Ukraine? Are you Ukrainian yourself? No I am very much a Frenchman, but I was nominated to be DG for 1993/94 for my District 1680. And we set out right away to find a suitable project for my year as Governor. Now it so happens that my club of Saverne was looking for an international project and thus we made contact with the RIGA ROTARY CLUB of LATVIA and Riga's secretary Arnis Engelis and I got talking after meeting in Vienna. Well what followed was a trip to Riga and the beginning of a project that has continued on since. (editor Amazing that a newly rechartered Club in Latvia with so much to do at home, already fully participated in the spirit of rotary encouraging Leon to go "next door"! It could so easily have suggested to refurbish a Latvian hospital in Riga instead!
In 1993 RI approved of my intentions to set up CERU, a Committee for the extension of Rotary in the Ukraine, and the adventure could begin. Now Kiev Club and the LUOV Club had already been set up by American Rotarians, which was a handy start .
We in the west don't know much about the history of the Ukraine, so we started learning something about the Ukrainian people. We found out that they had always cherished an independence and that changed our tactics .We were now bringing a message to citizens of a once great nation rather than to folk split off from the Soviet union. We started at once by promoting our "Polio plus" project attempting to eradicate this disease from the Ukraine with enthusiastic help from the first few Ukrainian Rotary leaders. I myself have not set the clubs …They proliferated as by osmosis or by the efforts of Germans, Americans Canadians and the French!
I have set plans in motion to establish an autonomous Ukrainian district to take effect on 1 July 2000, run by Ukrainians …There are 27 Rotary Clubs chartered, some provisional Clubs (seems to be 10) and 8 Rotaract Clubs. It is important to see that Rotary is for all of the Ukraine and coordinate Rotary Clubs in the eastern part of the country with those in the west, and to see to it that all sections of Ukrainian society benefit from Rotary.
Projects are going well and Rotarians are in charge of literally container loads full of medications, surgical and dental instruments and hospital equipment, about 100,000 French francs worth of "goodies". The Clubs are thriving! One of the difficulties is to educate Ukrainians into the mechanics of a functioning Rotary club. There is plenty of Goodwill and talent! What we must do is to try to change the mentality of current thinking! There is a vast difference between those more mature in years raised in Soviet philosophy and ideas and the young who look for freedom and liberty and democracy. In parting I leave you with the words of Charter president Gregory Yelisevitch on the very emotional investiture of his Paul Harris Fellowship award, he said; "Leon to us it is as if you have opened a window to freedom, as if so to say, we were behind prison bars!"
In photo Leon with local Rotarians including the local priest remembering that once upon a time not that long ago the Church was the only place free of totalitarian rule.
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