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2022-23 年 RI 社長年度主題：英文版本

2022-23 THEME ADDRESS

Jennifer Jones
RI President-elect
20 January 2022

On August 14th, Nick and I made our way to Evanston, Illinois — home of our Rotary

International headquarters and our new home for the next two years.
I must confess, I was incredibly excited to finally sit in my president-elect office. To
work from a space that I have respected for years. It was also nice to work from
someplace other than my dining room table.

Within the first week, I received a private message from a Rotarian early in the morning.
He said, “I am not sure if you remember me. You have spoken at our club, and we met
in Hamburg.”

He went on to say that he had a long-shot favor to ask me. His club had a relationship
with a scholar, a peace activist in Kabul, Afghanistan — a young woman who was now in
danger. Was there anything I could do to help get her onto an evacuation plane? He told
me that smartphones were being confiscated and she was using hers with a private
network to mask where she was phoning from.
We all remember the scenes as thousands of desperate people were trying to flee from
the Kabul airport.

From the comfort of my new office, and sitting behind my big desk, I suddenly felt very
small. Who was I, and what could I possibly do?

A few years earlier, Pat Merryweather, one of our Rotary International directors,
introduced me to a peace fellow who held the kind of position that could perhaps
influence this type of situation. Now it was my long shot.

I reached out, and that certain Rotary magic that we all know so well took over.

It’s the Rotary Peace Fellow who’s the hero of this story. I don’t know everything that
happened, but in less than 24 hours, the young woman was on an evacuation list. Two
days later, we learned she was safely en route to Europe for further processing.

Imagine her thoughts that day as the plane launched into the sky.

This, my friends, is the power of Rotary. When the right connections are made, the
world aligns and our stories merge. Our differences dissolve, and the only limit to our
impact is the barrier of our imagination.

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JENNIFER JONES, 2022-23 THEME ADDRESS