Uyanga Zaankhuu is a sign of how far the organisation has come since its formation a century ago. She’s also come a very long way herself, and has been very lucky to do so. The 27 year-old Mongolian has travelled 7,000 kilometres from Ulaanbaatar to study at Lancaster University Management School only weeks before vital funding to her UK Government scholarship was stopped.
She’s also a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar, and so she’s brought with her a work ethic that many would welcome into the standard MBA cohort. "In Rotary you learn how to serve others. You don't put yourself first," she says.
"When you help others you get so much satisfaction back and you learn more from your experiences. But Rotaract does also develop your leadership skills.”
This is why Uyanga feels that a decade in the Rotary Club prior to her MBA was the right choice. Through partnerships with other clubs (including in Hong Kong and the UK) she has been collaborating with other nationalities ever since she was 18. Her club also helped her take part in several leadership programmes.
Uyanga’s long-term commitment and experience were eventually rewarded with executive positions within her district. Looking back, she now believes that "the Rotary Club was on a level with work in banks for experience."
But this isn’t to say that studying at Lancaster has been any easier for her. "It’s so different to Mongolia! There the professor tells us everything and we just go away and do research.”
“Everything we do on the MBA is based on teamwork activities. Debating, sharing views and coming to concordance with the others is a tougher process; but you learn so much."
Soon she’ll work alongside coursemates to help a struggling UK business on Lancaster’s New Venture Challenge. “The university helps us select new ventures which lack business plans and real business documents. We talk to them and study their businesses, research their industry and also then make market research and come to a solution."
Uyanga is also due to head to Mumbai in April with Lancaster University, and will stay an extra week to coordinate a Polio project on behalf of Lancashire & Cumbria Rotary Clubs. She will later finish a tour of speeches to UK Rotary clubs about her experiences in Mongolia. And she’s working on a host of projects within the UK with Lancashire & Cumbria Rotary Clubs throughout her time on the MBA.
It’s going to be a long series of challenges, but she’s highly optimistic. After all this, Uyanga expects to bring real change to her old club when she returns home.
While the Rotaract scholarship will continue to be available to Mongolian students, Uyanga also relied on a Chevening Scholarship. This scholarship has since been scrapped due to UK government cuts, however, so opportunities for others like Uyanga may be limited in future.
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