Rotary Speeches

One of the requirements – and highlights – of my scholarship has been to visit with and give speeches to area Rotary Clubs. I attended weekly meetings with my host club and gave my first speech in Spanish to them (see “First Rotary Speech”), but also made the rounds to other clubs. Over my 12 weeks, and really just over the past six weeks since I have been comfortable enough to give public addresses in Spanish, I have delivered speeches to five of the six San Salvador Rotary Clubs and one of the two clubs in Santa Ana.

In all of the speeches I gave the audience a history of Hamden and New Haven, CT, an overview of the activities of the Hamden Rotary Club, an introduction to Rotary’s Ambassadorial Scholarship Program, and a lecture on social entrepreneurship and VisionSpring's work in El Salvador. The speeches have ranged between five minutes and forty-five minutes. All have been graciously received by my hosts, many of whom speak pretty decent English but stuck to Spanish for my sake (and for the sake of their members who do not speak English).

Here are some pictures from the visits (unfortunately I did not get pics at all of them):