Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager shot in the head for speaking out against the Taliban in support of girls' education, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2014. Yousafzai, whose father is a Rotarian, shares the prize with Kailash Satyarthi, a native of India who has worked to combat the exploitation of children for financial gain, according to an announcement in October from the Norwegian Nobel Committee. In announcing the award, the committee praised Yousafzai for demonstrating that "children and young people, too, can contribute to improving their own situations." It noted...

Seeing an elderly Tibetan woman weep with joy when cataract surgery restored her vision after 10 years is the kind of moment Dave Razo will never tire of. For several summers Razo, a member of the Rotary Club of Warner Robins, Georgia, USA, traveled to rural northwest China with a team from Georgia-based nonprofit Gansu Inc., to provide free sight-restoring cataract surgery to some of the country's poorest residents. In 2012, after 22 years and 6,000 successful procedures, Gansu's founder, ophthalmologist William Conrad, retired and discontinued the organization's operations. But Razo didn't...

After a year of shrinking polio cases worldwide, the crippling disease is now on the cusp of being eradicated, said top health officials at Rotary's second annual World Polio Day event on 24 October. At a special Livestream program -- World Polio Day: Make History Today -- Rotary leaders joined global health experts and celebrity singers to hail the progress of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. After nearly 30 years, the GPEI, which includes Rotary, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is on...

Erin Mills had just finished teaching for the day in Montevideo, Uruguay, when her smartphone buzzed with a message. An impromptu gathering to watch Uruguay's World Cup soccer match was being organized. Through the power of a mobile messaging app, a majority of the Rotary Club of Plaza Matriz had soon assembled at a member's home to munch on baked goods and chips while rooting for their national team. That enthusiasm and ability to draw a crowd has made the club, which just received its charter in July, a success in the country's capital city. Made up almost entirely of young professionals,...

Rotary celebrates World Polio Day on 24 October with a Livestream event featuring expert speakers and celebrity performers. Hosted by Time magazine science and technology editor Jeffrey Kluger, the Chicago event also includes a global status update on the fight to end polio and the challenges that remain, as well as information about joining Rotary's historic campaign. The program, being held before a live audience at 18:30 Chicago time (UTC-5), includes a performance from Tessanne Chin, 2013 winner of the TV show "The Voice," an introductory message and videotaped performance by reggae star...