Past Presidents Kay Curtis and Shari Cunningham joined the Polio Vision 2010 trip led by past District Governor Bob Gallagher and his wife, Mary Jean. The group visited the province of Utter Pradesh, a state in northern India, with roughly 200 million inhabitants.
We're happy to share another Polio story as we move closer to World Polio Day!
Past Presidents Kay Curtis and Shari Cunningham joined the Polio Vision 2010 trip led by past District Governor Bob Gallagher and his wife, Mary Jean. The group visited the province of Utter Pradesh, a state in northern India, with roughly 200 million inhabitants.
The trip took them to a very impoverished area where people lived in huts with no running water or electricity. The women rose each morning, cooked breakfast on an open fire and then went to work in the fields, taking their children with them.
On the first day of the mission, Shari and the group worked with the WHO to learn proper procedures. The following day, they began administering vaccines to children.
"We wanted to be a part of ending polio in the world," explains Shari. "India in 2010 was one of the countries that polio was still a significant problem." India constituted over 60% of all global polio cases in 2009.
"It was extremely moving to administer those 2 drops into children's mouths," says Shari, "to be part of this important mission."
Since this mission trip in 2010, India has officially been declared polio-free, along with the rest of the South-East Asia Region. Ten years later, and we are very close to living in a world that is free of the poliovirus. However, the children in Pakistan and Afghanistan still need our help.
Shari is very passionate about international work; she explains, "The world today is very small. People in all countries can see via the internet and TV how the rest of the world lives. There is such tremendous disparity in wealth. I think this is fertile ground to create hate and animosity. We need to do whatever we can to help those in developing countries achieve a better standard of living."
Typically, in India, parents didn't bring their children for their vaccines - as we do here in Canada. They had to work, leaving the older children to bring their younger siblings to get vaccines. Many children came alone.
Shari says that when it comes to the eradication of Polio, many people aren't aware of the hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours and dollars that Rotarians have given to support this cause.
Each donation by Rotarians is matched by the Gates Foundation, meaning every dollar has double the impact! Together, over the past 10 years, the Rotary Club of Windsor has donated more than $169,000 to end the fight against Polio.
We are so close to eliminating a human disease for only the second time in history! Together we can #EndPolioNow.
