Joe Batory 2401 Pennsylvania Avenue Apartment 15B33 Philadelphia, PA 19130 215-769-8530 josephbatory@comcast. net

Rotary Peace Fellows
Since the founding of this program in 2002-2003, 339 Rotary Peace Fellows have completed the two year master’s degree program at a cost of $23 million. Many of them are now leaders promoting national and international cooperation, peace and resolution of conflict.  Peace Fellow alumni are working for the United Nations, the World Bank, the Organization of American States, the International Organization for Migration, many other non-governmental organizations and national governments. 

(Lieutenant D F Pace of the Philadelphia Police Department has recently returned from the three month Peace Fellowship program at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. What follows are his reflections on that experience.)

 My initial Rotary involvement in Bangkok consisted of attending an all-day welcome conference on Sunday, June 12, 2011 hosted by PDG Dr. Saowalak Rattanavich and other influential Thai Rotarians (Pictured below). 

 On July 14, I spoke at the Phra Phadaeng Rotary Club in Bangkok, having been invited there by my host counselor Kuhn Quanchai Laohaviraphab (Pictured below)

 As a special bonus, while not directly related to Rotary, Adjan Surichai arranged for me to meet with law professor Viraphong Bonnyobhas at the Faculty of Law at Chulalongkorn University where I guest lectured a class on August 23, 2011 (Pictured below). 

As for the Peace Fellowship program, I was extremely impressed with the program as a whole and found it to be of world-class caliber.  It was well-organized, well-presented, and comprehensive.  This program was not taken lightly by the presenters nor the organizers and it showed in the quality of the delivery of the program as a whole.   

The whole program can be characterized as a success in my career and life as far as I am concerned.  I also deem it a privilege to have personally met the Honorable Bichai Rattakul.  In addition to the above, I also participated in the closing graduation program in several ways.  I delivered a talk on the challenges faced by the Philadelphia Police Department and the conflicts I am working on.  I also was privileged to deliver a closing speech on behalf of my cohort and, as a special treat, even served as auctioneer during a closing fund raising art auction that our cohort organized.   

Something else I consider a success is the amount of insight I gained into the workings of police departments in Thailand and Cambodia.  I took the initiative to visit police stations on my own time and established relationships with many officers and learned much about their challenges and successes.  This was very useful to me as I report back to my own police department for training and career development. 

I am trying very hard to think of a negative but am having difficulty doing so.  My host counselor, Mr. Quanchai was wonderful.   Ms. Rattanavich and Mr. Watson were also outstanding in fulfilling their responsibilities.  The program exposed me to over 500 years of experience among the various presenters in the field of conflict resolution.  The field studies were very well organized and I learned much.   

I have already delivered my first speech since returning to my home club (Philadelphia Club, Dist. 7450) on Thursday September 15, 2011.  It was very well received.   

I will use much of what I learned in future training sessions that I will deliver to police officers here in Philadelphia.  I also intend be at the District Foundation workshop and the District 7450 Conference to extol the virtues of the program and to encourage more people to apply.