Riga International Rotary Club brings together internationally minded professionals and leaders in Riga who believe in service, leadership, and community impact. Rotary Club of Riga International was chartered August 22nd 1998 by initiative of a group of expatriates, Embassy Officials and other international interested fellows. Our first President, Bengt Lagerstedt, is today an Official at the Stockholm - Bromma Rotary Club. Riga, with almost a million inhabitants, is the largest city in the Baltic region, a truly international city with a large community of foreigners from all over the world. Quite naturally there was a serious interest in this community to establish an International Rotary Club with English as Club language. Since the Club has been chartered, the number of nationalities among our members has grown significantly. We are pleased, that many Rotarian visitors to Latvia choose Riga International to attend our meetings, since these are in English; furthermore, meeting on Fridays fits for the travellers nicely to a weekend trip. Our meetings take place as lunch meetings on Fridays at 12:30 Hs. in Radisson Daugava Hotel, nicely located on the bank of Daugava with a beautiful view of the Old Town. Following Rotary’s Precept, our Club is active in different social projects, starting from small local activities to Rotary’s Matching Grants with international partner clubs. Since accession of Latvia to the European Union progress in different fields has been made over all these years. Nevertheless social contrasts continue to exist. A modern communication society, impressing huge shopping malls, people driving expensive cars, are in a strong contrast to still many poor older people, as well as children. The fast change of society created not only winners but also left many citizens behind. Due to this reason, there is still a lot to do for Rotarians in our small world. Our aim is therefore to provide our best contribution to the development of this Country into a socially more balanced, open and democratic society.
