Rotary International President Sakuji Tanaka of Japan will deliver the keynote address at the Rotary International District 6780 Peace Forum on March 9 in Oak Ridge.
For the first time in many years, a Rotary International president will visit Oak Ridge on Friday and Saturday, Mar. 8-9.
RI President Sakuji Tanaka of Japan will speak on “Peace through Service,†the motto for his one-year term, at the Peace Forum that the Rotary International District 6780 will hold.
Oak Ridge is the site of the only scheduled Rotary peace forum in the continental United States that the RI president will address. RI has sponsored international peace forums in Berlin and Honolulu. The RI president was present at these events and will attend the peace forum in Hiroshima, Japan.
The Peace Forum will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Pollard Technology Conference Center on the Oak Ridge Associated Universities campus. The conference hotel is the DoubleTree by Hilton on South Illinois Avenue.
In addition to being the keynote speaker, Tanaka will visit Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the International Friendship Bell (made in Japan), and the Secret City Commemorative Walk (built by the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge) in Bissell Park.
One of Rotary’s missions is to promote world peace and understanding. The Peace Forum is being organized by a committee assembled by Jack Bailey, past president of the Rotary Club of Oak Ridge and current district governor of District 6780, which encompasses 65 Rotary clubs in East Tennessee.
Fred Heitman, chair of the Peace Forum organizing committee and past president of the Oak Ridge club, said: “We are looking for ideas on how to achieve peace through science and technology and through human understanding. Our vision is to work toward creating a world that chooses communication, collaboration and cooperation over conflict.â€
Karen Wentz, past district governor of District 6780, will be moderator of the “Peace through Human Understanding†panel.
Panelists will be Jake Morrill, minister at the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church; Dick Bowers, past Rotary district governor, retired member of the U.S. diplomatic corps and former U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia; and Allison Kwesell, a Rotary World Peace Fellow at the International Christian University in Tokyo and a documentary photojournalist who worked in Japan, India, Nepal, China, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand, Azerbaijan, and Haiti.
Jim Roberto, head of the Partnerships directorate and acting deputy director for science and technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, will be the moderator of the “Peace through Science and Technology†panel.
The registration fee is $50, which includes a box lunch and drink. Non-Rotarians, as well as Rotarians, are welcome to attend. The first major sponsor of the forum is TnBank of Oak Ridge. Individual sponsors are Rotarians Jack Bailey, Adolf King, Barry Stephenson, and corporate sponsors include AkinsCrisp Public Strategies, American Aquatics, Galbraith Laboratories, and the Y-12 Federal Credit Union. The organizers of the Peace Forum are seeking additional sponsors to fund the event.
Sponsorship levels (including name and number of tickets) are $100 or less (Peace Patron), $500 (Friend of Peace – 2 tickets), $1,000 (Peace Builder – 4 tickets), $2,500 (Peace Partner – 6 tickets) and $5,000 (Peace Ambassador – 8 tickets).
RI is an international organization of 1.2 million members of 34,000 nonprofit service clubs in more than 200 nations and territories. District 6780 includes three clubs in Oak Ridge.
For more information, contact Fred Heitman at [email protected]. To register for the conference, please visit the website http://www.rotaryor.org/peaceforum.html.
Fred says
This is a great opportunity to explore ways that we can improve our homes, our communities, and our world. Technology dies so much to improve our quality of life yet we still need to interact with each other. Finding ways to embrace both of these will help us be better people and better citizens.