From Here to Human builds bridges through storytelling

(Left) Eli Hauber with children in Uganda during his internship with All We Are.

By Eli Hauber, a member of the Rotaract Club of UNC Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

Rotary has this funny way of finding you, not the other way around. It meets you where you are, smiles, extends a hand, and pulls you in for a big hug.

I was sixteen when I got my big hug.

Struggling to adjust to high school, I was changing who I was to fit in. My peers made me believe leadership meant being loud. Standing at the front of the room. Having answers. But when I started an Interact club, Rotary introduced me to a different kind of leadership, the quiet kind that listens before it speaks. The kind that puts service above self and measures success not in applause, but in the sparks it ignites in others.

We weren’t changing the world — at least not yet. We were recycling fruit, building libraries, learning to coordinate, care, and show up for others. Interact is kinda like a kid learning to ride a bike. It’s messy and unpredictable, but it’s the seed — full of potential. It’s where dreamers can dream big dreams and begin turning the unlikely into reality.

Now, all my seed needed was a little rain and sunshine.

My first Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) was all that and more. I find it impossible to convey just how life-changing RYLA is and what a turning point it turned out to be in my life. Surrounded by people just like me, I discovered there was a place for me in the world. A place where I didn’t need to fear failure or judgment. A place where my best self could begin to take form.

When I returned as a counselor and eventually a co-director, I watched new leaders undergo the same transformation. Seeing my younger self in them, I realized the magic of RYLA doesn’t wear off after the closing ceremony. It lingers in every act of kindness, every moment of courage, and every time we put service above self. The magic is in the ripple effect that turns four days into a lifetime of impact that quietly changes the world.

At UNC Chapel Hill, Rotaract became my next laboratory for impact, where I experienced Rotary’s global ecosystem of action for the first time. Brothers and sisters of one family united by one cause. Through my club’s mentorship program, I met Nathan Thomas, a past district governor and founder of All We Are, a non-governmental organization working to make sustainable energy more affordable and accessible in Uganda. One conversation led to another, and soon I found myself on a plane to Africa.

(left) Hauber installs solar panels during his internship with All We Are in July 2024

I spent a month living, working, and sweating under the equatorial sun in a bright red jumpsuit, helping install solar systems in rural schools and health care clinics. Traveling solo through one of the country’s poorest regions, I was surrounded by a reality that stripped away every filter I’d ever lived behind.

During my morning motorcycle rides through rural villages, I’d watch the fog lift off the jungle and wonder how I could fix everything around me. My mind raced for an answer that simply didn’t exist. But somewhere in the laughter of the children who ran beside me, I found my answer: All We Are.

I alone will never be able to fix what’s broken. Not because I don’t care enough, or because I don’t speak enough languages, but because the job isn’t meant for I. It’s meant for We. Rotary is an enduring reminder that sustainable impact is never a solo act. Progress is powered by people, by the collective “we” who choose to act, to care, and to keep going when the road gets rough.

That lesson became the heartbeat of From Here to Human, a storytelling initiative I later started to build peace through conversation. I wanted to extend Rotary’s spirit of connection by including the voices of ordinary people to reveal the invisible threads that weave humanity together. Whether it’s a street musician in Paris or a shepherd in Costa Rica, I continue to encounter the same truth: we, the people of Earth, are far more alike than we are different. We want to feel seen, heard, and loved. To experience peace, to belong, to be happy. And it’s these things that matter.

When we invest in the next generation, when we listen, mentor, and take a chance on them, we’re not just shaping leaders. We’re shaping the future of our planet by building bridges between generations, nations, and peoples who will soon be leading the global pursuit of peace.

Rotary hasn’t just given me opportunities. It’s given me an unshakable belief that no obstacle is insurmountable when we Unite for Good.

Eli Hauber is a business and global studies double major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Daniels Fund Scholar, and a Benjamin A. Gilman Scholar.

Road trip builds awareness for polio eradication

An End Polio Now benefit concert held at the concert hall in Lucerne, Switzerland, on 27 October, organized by Rotary clubs in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Director Christine Büring (left) at the benefit concert.

By Christine Büring, Rotary International Director, member of the Rotary Club of Altenburg, Germany

A week dedicated to polio — in lieu of taking a vacation? When End Polio Now Coordinator Christian Schleuss shared this idea, it gained momentum quickly. When he invited me to join, I cleared my calendar. Some members in our district have grown tired of talking about polio, so in our regional plan I set a goal to find new ways of talking about our long-standing effort to eradicate polio. This trip was a chance to accomplish that and be part of Schleuss’ effort.

Our two zones had scheduled to celebrate World Polio Day with events in Switzerland, and I also wanted to get to know the Rotary leadership in Switzerland better, as it falls within my area as an RI director. A whirlwind of activities began 20 October with a visit to Rotary International’s office in Zurich, where we met my friend, Trustee Pearl Okoro from Nigeria — a one-woman End Polio Now movement — where polio is still painfully real.

From there, we traveled to Geneva and visited the World Health Organization (WHO). Polio is a true changemaker. We were reminded how the infrastructure created through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988 continues to strengthen many other areas of global health. The program built wastewater surveillance systems worldwide, opened doors for other vaccines, fostered trust, and created networks of trained — often female — health workers.

Oliver Rosenbauer, the program’s spokesperson, and Dr. Jamal Ahmed, described the long and powerful list of benefits of this program. I see enormous opportunities for deeper collaboration and will bring that message back to our board. I was deeply moved when WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus took time to meet personally with us and even cut an End Polio Now cake that had been brought for the celebration.

On 24 October, Rotary and Rotaract clubs in Liechtenstein organized a public End Polio Now event in Vaduz. Together we transformed the square in front of the Parliament building. The End Polio Now flag flew alongside the national flag; while information booths, fundraising items like tulips, “polio shots” made of liqueur and chocolate, and grilled sausages drew crowds. The Minister of Health attended, as did local media. Dressed in our red End Polio Now vests, we made for fantastic social media visuals. We shared social posts seen around the world.

Over the course of the week, the 20 some Rotarians from Switzerland and Germany, dressed in red as walking billboards for End Polio Now, became friends. We embodied Rotary’s vision: a world where people learn from one another, take action together, and find deep fulfillment in being part of something larger than themselves.

The week concluded with a training seminar for district End Polio Now coordinators and a magnificent benefit concert at the concert hall in Lucerne. I returned home enriched and inspired. My sincere thanks, as always in Rotary, go to the many hands that organized, hosted, and supported these events. The list is long.

We are writing history. A volunteer organization determined to eradicate a disease and refusing to give up after more than 40 years. We are continually bringing partners to the table and often providing crucial support behind the scenes. That story is a blueprint for why I, as a Rotarian, give my time and resources. Unite for Good works when we are far-sighted and bold, generous and cooperative, persistent and adaptable. And when we continue to speak up for the cause.

I’m proud of who we are, and what we are accomplishing.

To learn more about our polio eradication efforts or make a gift to end polio, visit endpolio.org

Before the American Revolution, Native nations guarded their societies against tyranny

When the founders of the United States designed the Constitution, they were learning from history that democracy was likely to fail – to find someone who would fool the people into giving him complete power and then end the democracy.

They designed checks and balances to guard against the accumulation of power they had found when studying ancient Greece and Rome. But as I discuss with Ken Burns in his new documentary, “The American Revolution,” there were others in North America who had also seen the dangers of certain types of government and had designed their own checks and balances to guard against tyranny: the Native Americans.

Although most Americans today don’t know it, there were large centralized civilizations across much of North America in the 10th through 12th centuries. They built massive cities and grand irrigation projects across the continent. Twelfth-century Cahokia, on the banks of the Mississippi River, had a central city about the size of London at the time. The sprawling 12th-century civilization of the Huhugam had several cities of more than 10,000 people and a total population of perhaps 50,000 in the Southwestern desert.

An artist’s depiction of life in Cahokia. Michael Hampshire for the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

The ruins of these constructions remain, more than 1,000 years later, in places as far-flung as Phoenix, St. Louis and north Georgia.

The American Colonists and founders thought Native American societies were simple and primitive – but they were not. As research has found, including my own, and as I explain in my book, “Native Nations: A Millennium in North America,” Native American communities were elaborate consensus democracies, many of which had survived for generations because of careful attention to checking and balancing power.

Powerful rulers led many of these civilizations, combining political and religious power, much as monarchs of Europe in later centuries would claim a divine right to rule.

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In the 13th century, though, a global cooling trend began, which has been called the Little Ice Age. In part because of that cooling, large-scale farming became more difficult, and these large civilizations struggled to feed their people. Elites began hoarding wealth. The people wanted change.

Spreading out

The residents of North America’s great cities responded to these stresses by reversing the centralization of power and wealth. Some revolted against their leaders. Others simply left the cities and spread out into smaller towns and farms. All across the continent, they built smaller, more democratic and more egalitarian societies.

Huge numbers left Cahokia’s realm entirely. They found places that still had game to hunt and woods full of trees for firewood and building, both of which had declined near Cahokia due to its rapid growth.

The population of the central city of Cahokia fell from perhaps 20,000 people to only 3,000 by 1275. At some point the elite left as well, and by the late 15th century the cities of Cahokia’s realm were completely gone.

Encouraging engaged democracy

As they formed these new and more dispersed societies, the people who had overthrown or fled the great cities and their too powerful leaders sought to avoid mesmerizing leaders who made tempting promises in difficult times. So they designed complex political structures to discourage centralization, hierarchy and inequality and encourage shared decision-making.

These societies intentionally created balanced power structures. For example, the oral history of the Osage Nation records that it once had one great chief who was a military leader, but its council of elder spiritual leaders, known as the “Little Old Men,” decided to balance that chief’s authority with that of another hereditary chief, who would be responsible for keeping peace.

Another way some societies balanced power was through family-based clans. Clans communicated and cooperated across multiple towns. They could work together to balance the power of town-based chiefs and councils.

An ideal of leadership

Many of these societies required convening all of the people – men, women and children – for major political, military, diplomatic and land-use decisions. Hundreds or even thousands might show up, depending on how momentous the decision was.

They strove for consensus, though they didn’t always achieve it. In some societies, it was customary for the losing side to quietly leave the meeting if they couldn’t bring themselves to agree with the others.

Leaders generally governed by facilitating decision-making in council meetings and public gatherings. They gave gifts to encourage cooperation. They heard disputes between neighbors over land and resources and helped to resolve them. Power and prestige came to lie not in amassing wealth but in assuring that the wealth was shared wisely. Leaders earned support in part by being good providers.

‘Calm deliberation’

The Native American democracy that the U.S. founders were most likely to know about was the Iroquois Confederacy. They call themselves the Haudenosaunee, the “people of the longhouse,” because the nations of the confederacy have to get along like multiple families in a longhouse.

In their carefully balanced system, women ran the clans, which were responsible for local decisions about land use and town planning. Men were the representatives of their clans and nations in the Haudenosaunee council, which made decisions for the confederacy as a whole. Each council member, called a royaner, was chosen by a clan mother.

The Haudenosaunee Great Law holds a royaner to a high standard: “The thickness of their skin shall be seven spans – which is to say that they shall be proof against anger, offensive actions and criticism. Their hearts shall be full of peace and good will.” In council, “all their words and actions shall be marked by calm deliberation.”

The law said the ideal royaner should always “look and listen for the welfare of the whole people and have always in view not only the present but also the coming generations, even those whose faces are yet beneath the surface of the ground – the unborn of the future Nation.”

Of course, people do not always live up to their values, but the laws and traditions of Native nations encouraged peaceful discussion and broad-mindedness. Many Europeans were struck by the difference. The French explorer La Salle in 1678 noted with admiration of the Haudenosaunee that “in important meetings, they discuss without raising their voices and without getting angry.”

Politicians, government officials and everyday Americans might find inspiration in the models of democracy created by Native Americans centuries ago. There was an additional ingredient to the political and social balance: Leaders looked ahead and sought to protect the well-being of every person, even those not yet born. The people, in exchange, had a responsibility to not enmesh their royaners in less serious matters, which the Haudenosaunee Great Law called “trivial affairs.”