The Roots of Rotary’s Polio Eradication Efforts

On 29 September 1979, volunteers administered drops of oral polio vaccine to children at a health center in Guadalupe Viejo, Makati, Philippines. The event in metropolitan Manila was arranged and attended by Rotarians and delegates from the Philippine Ministry of Health.

A Polio Plus Note

This year, each Rotarian is encouraged to make a personal donation (of a size dictated by their financial situation) to the PolioPlus Fund by World Polio Day. And for Club leaders to make sure each donation is recognized as Paul Harris or Major Donor credit. (Terry Ziegler, Texas, PP Rotary)

  There is no cure for polio. Once you get it, you will be affected for the remainder of your life.  Polio survivors celebrate this day because of the vaccine—we know that those who receive it will never have to endure what we did. It’s a day to remind people about what polio was, and what it can be without the vaccine.  

Check out : 

World Polio Day | End Polio

DICK SCHULTZ,  A Florida Rotarian, 

Late Effects of Polio - Post Polio (post-polio.org)

Help us with ROTARY  “DROP POLIO TO ZERO”   

 https://www.endpolio.org/donate   

 Who we are – GPEI (polioeradication.org)

September: Theme is Basic Education and Literacy 

September is the start of spring is here on the Gold Coast.

The Rotary theme for this month is: Basic Education and Literacy. A theme of growth, development and hope.

On the Rotary International website is a very interesting article about this, which shows the impact that Rotary has in all corners of the world, an excerpt is below, once again showing Rotary at it’s best.

The Guatemala Literacy Project has worked for 25 years to improve reading rates. In 1997, Joe and Jeff Berninger, brothers from Ohio, were volunteering as English teachers at a Guatemalan school that had no books.

The two launched a project to solve that. The day the books arrived, there was a huge celebration, and a Rotarian dentist volunteering nearby heard the noise and asked what was going on.

“He said this would be a perfect project for Rotary,” says Joe Berninger, now a member of the Rotary Club of Pathways, Ohio, which coordinates the project

Rotarians in Guatemala helped develop reading programs in other schools, and since 1997, The Rotary Foundation has helped fund the literacy project with 48 grants totalling $6.5 million. Nearly 800 clubs in 90 districts have participated, making it one of the largest grassroots, multiclub, multidistrict projects in Rotary. The initiative also receives support from the U.S. nonprofit Cooperative for Education. "There's a lot of push and drive and enthusiasm that comes from Rotary," says Howard Lobb,

Cooperative for Education's director of partner development, also a member of the Ohio Pathways club.

“The GLP is the gold standard of Rotary projects” 2017-2018 RI President Ian Riseley

Link for more information: https://www.guatemalaliteracy.org/ and

https://rotary7070.org/stories/guatemala-literacy-project-a-gold-standard-of-rotary-projects

Source: Rotary International and Guatemala Literacy Project Website.

Article from the Rotary Club of Mermaid Beach

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An estimated 500 million people worldwide became infected. Many cities closed theaters and cinemas, and placed restrictions on public gatherings. Rotary clubs adjusted their activities while also helping the sick.

This is how Rotary responded to the influenza pandemic that began in 1918 and came in three waves, lasting more than a year.

The Rotary Club of Berkeley, California, USA, meets in John Hinkel Park during the 1918 flu pandemic.

Photo by Edwin J. McCullagh, 1931-32 club president. Courtesy of the Rotary Club of Berkeley.

Rotary and the United Nations have a shared history of working toward peace and addressing humanitarian issues around the world.

During World War II, Rotary informed and educated members about the formation of the United Nations and the importance of planning for peace. Materials such as the booklet “From Here On!” and articles in The Rotarian helped members understand the UN before it was formally established and follow its work after its charter. 

Many countries were fighting the war when the term “United Nations” was first used officially in the 1942 “Declaration by United Nations.” The 26 nations that signed it pledged to uphold the ideals expressed by the United States and the United Kingdom the previous year of the common principles “on which they based their hopes for a better future for the world.” 

Every hero has an origin story. “I was 10 years old when the entire journey started,” explains Binish Desai. It began with a cartoon called Captain Planet, an animated TV series from the 1990s about an environmentalist with superpowers. Desai can still recite the show’s refrain: Captain Planet, he’s our hero / Gonna take pollution down to zero! “That tagline stuck in my mind,” he says. “I wanted to do something to help Captain Planet.”

In early 1919, Rotarian Roger Pinneo of Seattle, Washington, USA, traveled to the Philippines to try to organize a Rotary club in Manila. Leon J. Lambert, a Manila business leader helped Pinneo establish the club. Several months later, on 1 June 1919, the Rotary Club of Manila was chartered and became the first Rotary club in Asia.

The club would be the only one in the country for more than 12 years. Eventually, Manila club members organized Rotary clubs in the Philippine cities of Cebu (1932) and Iloilo (1933). Iloilo club members then started a club in Bacolod (1937), and Rotary continued to expand across the country.