Welcome to Rotary in
Cumbria and Lancashire

Basic Education & Literacy

September is Rotary Basic Education & Literacy month and Rotarians around the world are promoting many projects, small and large, that support this theme.  The examples below are what Rotarians in Cumbia & Lancashire have been doing, both locally and internationally.  The local ones are :

Reading - Carnforth Rotary Club provide reading during term times with Key Stage 1 classes at a local school.

The Dictionary 4 Life helps to promote literacy and supports children to develop their skills and understanding with the English language.  Rotary Clubs of Preston Guild, Workington and former club Great Harwood and Rishton have been making donations of Dictionaries for Life to youngsters in schools in their area for many years.

Image : Pupils at St. Peter and St. Paul's Primary School in Rishton with their dictionaries

Life Education Lancashire & Cumbria provide in-school workshops throughout Cumbria & Lancashire providing PSHE (Personal, social, health and economic education ) workshops in primary schools.  Darwen Rotary has been making  donations for over four years to encourage schools to take up Life Education visits.  Carlisle Rotary has previously been a regular donor to Life Education Cumbria over many years. 

International 

Darwen Rotary :  This was a joint project with the Rotary Club of Iyaganku-Ibadan, Nigeria in December 2023 and provided funding for a Dental Health project.   Darwen Rotary contributed to the cost of running clinics.    

Penrith Rotary helped fund a Water Project at Bright Future School, Moshi in Kilimanjaro 2021, where a new primary school for disadvantaged children was constructed.  The cost of the well, overhead tank and pump  was made possible through the support of the Rotary Club of Hai, Kilimanjaro and the Rotary Club of Penrith.  

Workington Rotary have donated over 7.5 million reject pencils, that were destined for landfill to 46 third world countries.  Rotary Clubs throughout Cumbria & Lancashire obtained some of these pencils for their own overseas projects.  One club, Whitehaven Castle Rotary donated some pencils and funds to the Cumbria Rungwe Community Link to take with them on their trip to Tanzania.

"The big amount of colour pencils you donated to us was very much appreciated by the various schools we passed them on to." 

Carlisle Rotary has donated to Education for All Morocco sponsoring a Moroccan student for several years.  The organisation provides marginalised girls in rural Morocco with access to education. 

Furness Peninsula - Their menstrual health project in India took place the state of Karnataka. They supported eight schools sanitary dispensers and incinerators.  This project has provided the young girls with some support to feel more comfortable to attend school.

Read in more detail about the various projects on our Youth Page and our International Page.

Interested in Rotary?

There are different avenues to joining Rotary.  You can join your local Rotary Club or join Rotary Direct where you do not belong to a local club.  Organisations are welcome to join as Corporate members.  Visit our What is Rotary?  page to find out more about we do.  Our Membership Services pages contain links to our local clubs and  information about Clubs, Direct and Corporate Membership.  You can contact us by using the forms at the bottom of the Membership pages or the Contact button at the top of this page.