HIS PASSION FOR YOUNG PEOPLE is one of the driving forces behind the work he will embark on during his year as president of the Rotary Club of Barbados.
Tony Williams, who took over the helm of the local branch of the Rotary Club from July 1, said what he brought to the presidency of the Rotary was a passion about working with youth.
A major part of the plans he has for his year-long tenure, he said, is that the children of the nation will benefit.
He said he was particularly interested in enhancing the development of the youth, mentioning that an aspect of the Rotary Club of Barbados involvement would be the setting up of a mini model United Nations General Assembly, with 40 student delegates drawn from the secondary schools across the island.
The aim of the assembly is to promote the idea of peace, which is the theme for Rotary International this year.
Williams said the student delegates would be required to research the topic and test their debating skills later this year when they would have to debate and vote on a resolution about peace in Syria.
Not to be left out are the elderly, who will benefit from some refurbishment work at the Geriatric Hospital in Beckles Road. Williams said that the Rotary Club would be renovating two wards of the facility as a means of assisting with the current building improvement programme there.
“We are trying to do something for the senior citizens, considering that over 17 per cent of the population is over 65 years old,” Williams said.
Now that he is retired, Williams, who has been a member of Rotary Barbados for over ten years, is no stranger to giving freely of his time to assist others.
He said he now had more time to dedicate to humanitarian work, with which he has a long history.
He said that many years ago he was a member of the Junior Chamber, a leadership training organization that trained young people by getting them involved in projects.
He said that that ultimately led to his involvement in the Rotary Club of Barbados. He believed that being in an organization would allow him to do volunteer and charity work more effectively than going at it as an individual.
Additionally, he said that the Rotary club is a volunteer organization of business, professional and community leaders.
He highlighted the Rotary Club’s five avenues of service: club, community, international, vocational and new generation services.
Williams said that under his leadership, maximum attention would be given to programmes such as drug awareness; the pacemaker bank programme, in which pacemakers are provided for indigent people in Barbados and the Caribbean; and the wheelchair project.
“Rotary promotes high ethical standards and tries to promote the four-way test: truth, fairness, building goodwill and doing things that are beneficial to all – similar to the golden rule in The Bible, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’,” Williams said.
There are also programmes such as the Ambassador Scholarship Programme, which awards a one-year sponsorship to a student, who will not only further his or her studies but also act as an ambassador for Barbados as well as for the Rotary Club.