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Polio eradication campaign soars from new heights
From the October 2015 issue of The Rotarian
Ken Hutt is running toward the edge of a cliff, pounding across the snow in thin freezing air, a full pack of gear strapped to his back. As if attached to an invisible string, he rises a few feet off the ground and drops back down. A few more strides and he is aloft again. Then he flies off the face of the world’s sixth-highest mountain.
Hutt, a member of the Rotary Club of Berry, Australia, has just paraglided off Cho Oyu, 12 miles west of Mount Everest.
The flight was both the fulfillment of his longtime dream to climb an “eight-thousander” – what…
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Convention: Seoul searching
From the October 2015 issue of The Rotarian
As the world hurtles down the path of modernization, many cultures resist the speed of change. Korea embraces it, yet retains a balance many of us worry we’re losing. In Seoul, business-suited fathers patiently escort their children to school. Multigenerational families pause by ponds and brilliant bursts of wild azalea. Each day before dawn, Buddhist monks throughout the land sound fish- and cloud-shaped drums to wake all creatures, from sea to sky. It is a ritual thousands of years old, and in Korea, this rhythm of tradition infuses everything….
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Meet our polio partners
From the September 2015 issue of The Rotarian
Eradicating polio is a complex job. Since 1988, we’ve collaborated with the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF to tackle the disease through our Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Here’s how our roles break down.
The Strategist: WHO
The World Health Organization (WHO) coordinates the management and administration of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and provides technical and operational support to ministries of health in countries around the world. WHO is responsible for monitoring…
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Nigeria sees no wild polio cases for one year
Today marks one year since Nigeria last reported a polio case caused by wild poliovirus, putting the country on the brink of eradicating the paralyzing disease.
The last case was reported on 24 July 2014 in the northern state of Kano. If no cases are reported in the coming weeks, the World Health Organization is expected to remove Nigeria from the list of countries where polio is endemic, leaving just two: Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Nigeria is the last polio-endemic country in Africa. The continent is poised to reach its own first full year without any illness from the virus on 11 August.
“…
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Australian students take opportunity by the horns
The rules of the Shaftesbury Rodeo Academy are simple: no school, no rodeo. It’s a message that teenagers who attend school at Bisley Farm, most of whom have never attended any school regularly, take seriously. Because come Friday night, these aspiring rodeo heroes want to join their friends to ride bulls for a heart-stopping eight seconds, if they last that long.
The school in rural Queensland, Australia, also teaches the boys, who are of the Wakka Wakka Aboriginal people, basic academics and farming skills, including how to care for crops and livestock. It’s a fairly common form of…
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Africa on brink of polio eradication
Nigeria and the whole continent of Africa is on the cusp of being polio free, Dr. Hamid Jafari told audience members at the Rotary Convention on 8 June in São Paulo, Brazil.
Between 2013 and 2014, the reported cases of polio dropped from 53 to just six in Nigeria. Even more encouraging, said Jafari, is that the last case of polio in Nigeria was reported in July of last year and the last case in all of Africa was reported in Somalia in August.
“With a year of no polio cases in Nigeria tantalizingly close, and no cases in Somalia since August, the tireless work of so many people across the…
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Alumni Award Winner Helps Others Overcome Mental Illness, Speaks at Rotary Convention
Dr. Geetha Jayaram has dedicated her life to helping people in her native India and the United States overcome the torment of severe depression, bipolar disorder, panic attacks, and other mental illnesses.
Jayaram is a psychiatrist and associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. Her work expanding access to mental health services is much needed. Depression affects at least 350 million people and is the leading cause of disability worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
“In India, there is no mental…
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Water summit urges Rotary members to invest in youth
Almost 200 million days of school attendance are lost every year because of the lack of proper sanitation. Many diarrhea cases in children result from transmission of disease in schools rather than at home.
“A school is a place where children should feel safe, not a place where they are susceptible to infection,” says Lizette Burgers, senior adviser of UNICEF’s Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in Schools program
But the message at the World Water Summit on 4 June in São Paulo was positive: Rotary members and their clubs can make schools healthier places through programs that provide clean…
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2015 Rotary Convention photo gallery
See our photo gallery from São Paulo.