CLUB PROFILE

Name:  Rotary Club of Curaçao
Meetings: Thursday 12:00 – 1:40 pm, at Landhuis Zeelandia
Members:  Close to 100
Chartered: March 10, 1937   
Club nr.:   7534
District:   7030
Foundation:  Currently a 100% Rotary Foundation Sustaining Member Club, over 50% of the members are Paul Harris Fellows
Programs: Rotaract Club of Curaçao
Related local Foundation:  Stichting Community Service Rotary Club Curaçao
         

Membership Details

             
 

HISTORY

Rotary Club of Curaçao was founded on March 10th, 1937. The club was one of the 160+ Rotary clubs that were formed as a direct result of the work by James Roth. The initial club consisted of 29 members. Since then the Rotary Club of Curaçao has enjoyed a period of uninterrupted growth and now is stable and about 100 members.
The club used to form part of Rotary District # 4370, which used to comprise Venezuela (Eastern part), Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire (fondly referred to as the "ABC")". Currently, Rotary Club of Curaçao is part of Rotary District # 7030. Rotary District 7030 is home of some of the world's most diverse and vibrant Rotary Clubs. With over 2,000 Rotarians in 73 Clubs in 17 Counties & Territories in the Southern Caribbean, District 7030 covers a diverse geography and encompasses a variety of cultures and languages – English, French and Dutch are all spoken in countries within District 7030.

Our Rotary Club of Curaçao has been host to six District Conferences, in 1941, 1960, 1973, 1982, 1992, 2003 and 2012 and at least one District Assembly. It has been honored five times by visits of a President of Rotary International. It has produced two District Governors, Sha Capriles in 1944 and Rene Moreno in 1965. Rene Moreno thereafter served Rotary International on various occasions as a special Representative of the President of Rotary International.

RCC chartered four other Rotary Clubs

The Rotary Club of Curaçao did not waste any time in spreading the message of what it means to be a Rotarian to our neighbors. Slightly over a year after its establishment, the Rotary Club of Curaçao sponsored the formation of the Rotary Club Aruba, chartered on December 10th, 1938. Then in 1953 it sponsored the Rotary Club of Paramaribo in Suriname and in 1982, the Rotary Club of Curaçao sponsored the creation of the Rotary Club of Bonaire. The Rotary Club of Willemstad in Curaçao was chartered by the Rotary Club of Curaçao in September 2002.  The first Club President was Dr. Shirley Lo-A-Njoe, from the St. Elisabeth Hospital. 
 

Active and involved members

Rotary Club of Curaçao has always been an active contributor to the Rotary Foundation. We have been fortunate enough to obtain three Rotary Foundation scholarships for candidates presented by our club.

Considering that Curaçao is an important tourist and business destination there is virtually never a meeting without fellow Rotarians from all parts of the world in attendance.

In professional service Rotary Club of Curaçao has been consistently active in giving vocational information to graduating high school classes. Club members representing various professions hold talks with students setting forth details about each alternative and counseling them on how to follow higher studies in their chosen fields.

Many club members take active part, often as chairman, in local business and professional organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Association for Trade and Industry, the Curaçao Medical Association, the Association of Pharmacists, the Bar Association, the Association of Certified Public Accountants, the Association of Insurance Brokers, the Royal Society of Engineers, etc.

 

Our involvement in the Avenues of Service

Community Service is the Avenue in which the Club has been most active. In 1938 our very first project was to help bring back to Curaçao local laborers that were stranded in Cuba after the collapse of the sugar-cane boom. During World War 11 the Club spearheaded a drive to acquire a Red Cross lifeboat, helped establish the "Prins Bernhard" Foundation, founded the Curaçao chapter of the Fellowship of the Bellows, and pushed for the creation of a direct telephone connection with New York.
International Service comes naturally to our club because almost all its members are in one way or another involved in tourism, international business, shipping or finance. Intrinsically our Rotarians help improve international relations, promote the island to the world outside, host visiting foreigners, and maintain close and friendly contact with official representatives of foreign nations. 

On occasion several members of our club organize projects to bring our island and our Club closer together with other nations and other Clubs throughout the world.

 

Relationship between the Dutch Caribbean Islands and The Netherlands

The Dutch Caribbean, used to be a country called the Netherlands Antilles (which no longer exist) consisting of 5 Islands and was an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands.  The Dutch  Caribbean consists of two groups of islands in the Lesser Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao (ABC Islands), just off the Venezuelan coast; and Sint Eustatius, Saba and Sint Maarten (SSS Islands), in the Leeward Islands southeast of the Virgin Islands.
Aruba became a separate country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1986, followed by Curaçao and Sint Maarten with dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles on 10 October 2010, resulting in two new constituent countries, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, with the BES islands (Bonaire, St. Eustatius and Saba) joining the Netherlands as "special municipalities", officially public bodies of the Netherlands.