José Maria Morelos

Hands-on Service Projects provide a huge amount of personal satisfaction for Rotarians. As we take the final steps on polio eradication a National Immunization Day [NID]is the ultimate Rotarian Bucket List item.

 

Mexico is polio free but it is necessary continue to vaccinate children there until the entire world is polio free. 

 

The NID  in the small Sonora Desert village of José Maria Morelos was carried out by 11 Rotarians and 4 Rotarian spouses from 7080 working with two nurses from the Mexican National Health Service. The village is west of Caborca and about one hour from the northern part of the Gulf of Cortez. There are warnings from both the Canadian and the American governments recommending no non-essential travel because of drug cartels and incidents of robbery and kidnapping for ransom in the area. But our group decided that, for Rotarians, immunizing children against polio is essential travel. In the event, we encountered no difficulties and did not see any excessive police or para-military activity. Local Rotarians provided the transportation and their local knowledge kept us from areas where there might be a risk.

 

The Group went door-to-door in the village where the residents had been told we were coming. The houses were mostly very poor; a good salary there is $300 per month. Some of the houses had up to 24 people living in them. But the houses and the children were very clean and we were made most welcome. We had a gaggle of kids around us from time-to-time partly because we were strangers but mostly because we were giving out pins, boxes of crayons and small toys.

 

A highlight of the trip was the visits to projects by the local Rotary Club. Many of the small villages receive their water supply from a tower provided by Rotary and there are numerous playgrounds bearing the Rotary symbol. A project was presented to us that will provide equipment for a hospital kitchen that was built with Rotary money. On return to Canada Rotarians from several of the clubs represented on the NID approached their club International Committee and the funding of US$10,000 for the kitchen equipment was quickly committed including US$2000 from our club.