Addis Ababa

When Selamawit Tezera Chaka became president of the Rotary Club of Addis Ababa in Enderasse, Ethiopia, she started by asking members one question: what would you actually change? Their answers shaped almost everything that followed.

Under her term, the club chartered two Interact clubs in all-girls schools, signed a twin club agreement with the Rotary Club of Jabali in Kenya, and brought in four new members, its highest intake in recent memory. Not every project survived the year. One initiative stalled out under bureaucratic obstacles and had to be let go.

Her own summary of the year is the part worth keeping: leadership is not about perfection, it is about building systems that outlive your term.

Source: Rotary International's blog, blog.rotary.org, https://blog.rotary.org/2026/08/06/a-year-of-listening-learnings-and-letting-go/