Rotary Spain celebrates in Marbella the 50 years of its exchange program with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov

Rotary Spain celebrates in Marbella the 50th anniversary of the Youth Exchange, an exchange program that was created with the purpose of offering young people around the world the opportunity to have a transformative experience, live with other cultures, and develop values such as tolerance, respect, and cooperation. The celebration, held in Marbella, gathers current inbounds, former participants, and Rotarians from all over Spain in an event that combines conferences, cultural and sports activities, and meeting spaces between young people and mentors.

Among the speakers, the standout is undoubtedly the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Dmitry Muratov, the Russian journalist and editor of Novaya Gazeta, a newspaper that has been a benchmark of free press in Russia since its inception in 1993 with its reports on corruption and human rights violations. In 2022, Muratov auctioned his Nobel Peace Prize medal, raising over 103 million dollars which he donated entirely to UNICEF to aid refugee children from Ukraine.

Rotary states that the exchange program "has woven an international network of friendship that transcends borders, languages, and generations"

The events for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Rotary program began this Thursday with a March for Peace, in which more than a hundred people participated, mainly young people, who walked the distance from the beach of La Salida, in San Pedro Alcántara to the viewpoint of Puerto Banús, and will continue today at the Hard Rock hotel, with Muratov's conference and the exhibition of exchange experiences.

Rotary annually conducts 9,000 exchanges for young people worldwide, thus creating "invisible, but very powerful ties for understanding and coexistence among different cultures and nationalities." Over the five decades of the Youth Exchange, thousands of students have participated in long and short exchanges, becoming true ambassadors of peace, so that "the program has woven an international network of friendship that transcends borders, languages, and generations," the organization asserts.