Expanded "This Close" resources
available
By Wayne Hearn
Rotary International News -- 31 January 2011
 Bill Gates, cochair of the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has joined the growing
roster of public figures and celebrities participating in
Rotary’s “This Close” public service announcement
campaign for polio eradication.
Rotarians can help Rotary
achieve its goal of a polio-free world by using the
public service announcements, which explain that
"we're this close to ending polio." Television versions
are now available in English, French, German, Italian,
Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish. A radio
version also is available in English, with other
languages to follow.
In late February, the
campaign will offer an online, interactive feature --
thisclose.net -- that will allow individual Rotarians and
members of the general public to personalize “This Close”
ads with their own names and faces.
Also new to the campaign are
Archie Panjabi, a film and television actress, and A.R.
Rahman, an Indian composer and music producer who
received two Academy Awards for his contributions to the
2008 hit film Slumdog Millionaire. In all, 24
notables -- from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop
Emeritus Desmond Tutu and action movie star Jackie Chan
to golf legend Jack Nicklaus and conservationist Jane
Goodall -- are raising their thumbs and forefingers in
the “this close” gesture in the print, outdoor, and
broadcast public service announcements being
distributed worldwide.
Rotary clubs can use the ads
within their communities to increase awareness of and
support for
Rotary’s US$200 Million Challenge, the ongoing effort
to raise $200 million for polio eradication to match $355
million in challenge grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation.
Clubs and districts are
encouraged to customize the “This Close” ads to help
promote their own polio fundraising efforts, and to seek
donated or discounted placements from their local
newspapers, outdoor advertising companies, and television
and radio stations. The materials complement the polio
eradication component of Rotary’s broader Humanity in
Motion public image campaign.
The “This Close” ads were
introduced at the 2010 International Assembly. Print ads
have since run in several publications, including The
Rotarian magazine, USA Today , the
Chicago Tribune , and the Wall Street Journal
Asia . Rotarians at the 2010 RI Convention also saw
them at Montréal-Trudeau International Airport.
The RI Public Relations
Division sought participants who represent a wide range
of professions, accomplishments, interests, and levels of
celebrity. There are figures of international and
cross-cultural fame, such as Tutu, Queen Noor of Jordan,
and classical violinist Itzhak Perlman, as well as
figures who are well known within specific countries,
regions, and cultures, such as Bollywood superstar
Amitabh Bachchan, Nigerian soccer star Nwankwo Kanu,
Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo, and Korean ballerina Sue
Jin Kang.
Perlman, a polio survivor,
has been particularly supportive of Rotary’s polio
eradication effort. He will perform in his second benefit
Concert to End Polio on 7 March with the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Center. The first Concert
to End Polio was a sold-out event featuring Perlman and
members of the New York Philharmonic, who performed at
the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in December
2009.
Immunization campaigns move ahead in
Congo Republic
By Dan Nixon
Rotary International News -- 17 December 2010
Rotarians in the Republic of
the Congo are stepping up their efforts to help stop the
recent outbreak of wild poliovirus in their country.
The national PolioPlus
committee has produced more than US$100,000 worth of
posters, pamphlets, banners, T-shirts, and other
materials to help mobilize public support for eradicating
the disease.
At least 179 people have died
in the outbreak, with 476 cases of acute flaccid
paralysis (AFP) reported as of 7 December. Most of the
cases involve young people between ages 15 and 29 and
have occurred in the city of Pointe-Noire. To date, 12 of
the AFP cases have been confirmed as polio.
Georges Moyen, the nation’s
health minister, says the Rotarians’ support was well
targeted and timely. “All you have offered, Pointe-Noire
has lacked,” he says. “The weakness is a lack of social
mobilization.”
Rotary International and its
partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative --
the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- are
responding strategically to the outbreak. Rotary has
provided a total of $500,000 in emergency grants to WHO
and UNICEF for immediate polio immunization efforts
throughout the country.
The outbreak is due to
imported poliovirus that is related to the virus
circulating in Angola. The Congo Republic recorded its
last case of indigenous polio in 2000, and urgent action
is required by government and partner agencies to again
make the country polio-free.
"Polio outbreaks highlight
our global vulnerability to infectious disease," says Dr.
Robert Scott, chair of Rotary’s International PolioPlus
Committee. "It reinforces the fact that polio 'control'
is not an option, and only successful eradication will
stop the disease."
The Congo Republic carried
out National Immunization Days (NIDs) in November and
early December, and NIDs are scheduled again for 11
January.
"Every man, every woman,
every child will be immunized irrespective of their past
immunization status," says Dr. Luis Sambo, WHO regional
director for Africa. "This way we can be assured that
everybody is reached, including young adults, whose
immunity may be low."
Outbreaks of imported polio
cases are not uncommon during eradication efforts,
underscoring the critical need to stop transmission of
the virus in the remaining polio-endemic countries:
Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan.
"Our experience shows that
where polio transmission has been stopped before, it can
be stopped again," Scott says. "A fast, large-scale,
high-quality immunization response using the
new tools at hand, along with strong surveillance, is
absolutely critical."
Nigeria making
impressive progress against polio
By Arnold R. Grahl
Rotary International News -- 28 July 2010
Bill Gates says he is
impressed with the progress Nigeria has made against
polio and urges partners in the fight to eradicate the
disease not to let up.
Gates, cochair of the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, shared personal observations
from his June trip to Nigeria on his blog,
Gates Notes. The post, along with others about polio,
are appearing this week on the Gates Foundation blog,
Foundation Notes.
In addition, the Gates
Foundation website is highlighting two
videos produced in June for the Global Polio
Eradication Initiative.
"I was very excited to visit
northern Nigeria in June, because the progress there
since my last visit in February 2009 has been especially
impressive," Gates writes. As of 20 July, only six cases
of the wild poliovirus have been reported in Nigeria this
year, compared with 346 during the same period in 2009.
The Gates Foundation has
given Rotary US$355 million in grants for its work to
eradicate polio. In response, Rotary has committed to
raising $200 million. As of 30 June, Rotary has raised
$141.2 million
On his blog, Gates says he
spent most of his first day in the northern state of Kano,
which has been vulnerable to polio, meeting with
community leaders, visiting a local health center, and
stopping at a school where students were studying the
Quran in Arabic.
"On the streets and most
everywhere else we went, I noticed so many young children
around," he writes. "Nigeria has more people by far than
any other African country, and more than 40 percent of
them are under the age of 15. That makes polio
immunization a big challenge."
Gates adds that during his
trip, he learned about creative approaches to inform
Nigerians about polio immunization. Pro-immunization
messages are being woven into the plotlines of popular TV
shows, and one of Nigeria's major mobile phone service
providers has agreed to send about 25 million free text
messages about polio and health.
He also mentions the
importance of engaging local leaders and says the
'commitment from Nigeria's leaders has been crucial' to
the fight against polio in the country. While in the
capital city of Abuja, he had dinner with the minister of
health, and the next day met with the nation's new
president, Goodluck Jonathan.
One of the videos on the
Gates Foundation website praises efforts that have
reduced the threat of polio by 99 percent but stresses
the need to finish the job. "If you were an athlete, you
would never only run 99 percent of the race," a voiceover
on the video announces. "An astronaut wouldn't fly only
99 percent of the way to the moon, and a firefighter
would never just put out 99 percent of a fire."
New polio eradication
plan launched
By Dan Nixon
Rotary International News -- 12 July 2010
The World Health Organization
and UNICEF cohosted a meeting with Rotary International
and other stakeholders in Geneva on 18 June to launch the
Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) Strategic Plan
2010-12.
Sudhir Gupta, a member of the
India PolioPlus Committee and past governor of
District 3100, immunizes four-year-old Sivi Sen
against polio at the Moradabad railway station in
Uttar Pradesh. Photo by Allison Kwesell
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The new plan comes at a
critical time for the GPEI. Key endemic countries are
witnessing historic gains against the disease. Nowhere is
progress more evident than in Nigeria, which has reported
just three cases in 2010 as of 6 July compared with 333
cases for the same period in 2009. India has reported 22
cases compared with 107 cases.
Across Africa, 10 of the 15
previously polio-free countries reinfected in 2009 have
stopped their outbreaks.
In May, the World Health
Assembly welcomed the new plan while expressing deep
concern about the substantial funding gap over the next
three years. The shortfall is a serious risk to ending
polio and highlights the need for Rotary to reach its
goal of raising US$200 million.
WHO Director-General Margaret
Chan called on the international funding community to
stand tall for polio eradication. “The next three years,
and especially the next 12 months, are critical to the
polio eradication initiative and, by extension, the
entire international public health agenda.”
An essential element of the plan
is the bivalent oral polio vaccine, which is being used
effectively against wild poliovirus types 1 and 3 in all four
endemic countries: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Pakistan.
(Type 2 poliovirus has been eradicated.)
The plan also focuses on
known polio migration routes, which have made outbreaks
of the disease largely predictable. Aggressive
synchronized immunization campaigns are now being used to
help prevent and stop outbreaks.
The partners of the GPEI are
exploring every option to secure fresh funding and are
managing existing cash flow to limit any threat to the
eradication effort. The risk of not stopping polio in
endemic countries was made clear when a large outbreak
occurred in Tajikistan, caused by poliovirus that had
spread from India in early 2010. The outbreak has
paralyzed 334 children as of 29 June. Tajikistan had been
polio-free since 1997.
“The complete eradication of
polio is an absolute goal, and it requires absolute
commitment from us all,” says UNICEF Executive Director
Tony Lake.
“Rotary believes the new
strategic plan provides the blueprint to achieving the
goal of polio eradication,” says Rotary Foundation
Trustee Chair Carl-Wilhelm Stenhammar.
Klinginsmith asks Rotary clubs to
get 'bigger, better, and bolder'
RI President-elect Ray
Klinginsmith speaks during the closing plenary
session on 23 June at the 2010 RI Convention in
Montréal, Québec, Canada. Photo by Alyce
Henson/Rotary Images |
By Arnold
R. Grahl
Rotary International News – 23 June 2010
As the 2010 RI Convention in
Montréal, Québec, Canada, drew to a close on 23 June, RI
President-elect Ray Klinginsmith outlined his plans for
his term, which begins 1 July.
Participants also got a
preview of next year’s big event in New Orleans,
Louisiana, USA, where the Host Organization Committee has
planned fun for the whole family.
Klinginsmith will ask
Rotarians to apply "cowboy logic" and make Rotary clubs
"bigger, better, and bolder."
The fundamental principles of
cowboy logic are taking pride in your work, talking less
and saying more, doing what has to be done, and
remembering that some things just aren’t for sale, he
explained during the closing plenary session.
"I believe the way for Rotary
to remain viable and vibrant in the next century is to
help our clubs to be bigger, better, and bolder,"
Klinginsmith said. "The clubs are the life and breath of
Rotary. Therefore, it is clear to me that my job is to
help the district governors to help the clubs. We can do
it, and we will do it, if all of us follow the simple
solution of cowboy logic."
Klinginsmith also listed
improvements that he and the RI Board have already
authorized, including revisions to the RI Strategic Plan
to make it easier to implement and evaluate, a
realignment of RI committees to fit the revised plan, the
recruitment of 41 Rotary coordinators, and a commitment
to finding new ways to attract younger members and enable
them to serve as district governors.
Klinginsmith’s Rotary journey
started in New Orleans, where he boarded a ship to begin
a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship at the
University of Cape Town, South Africa, in 1961. After
returning home, he and his wife, Judie, married and then
honeymooned in the city. He said he is excited about the
venue of the 2011 RI Convention because he will have
traveled full circle in both his personal and Rotary
life.
During the fourth plenary
session, members of the 2011 Host Organization Committee
shared some of the highlights planned for Rotarians,
including a concert featuring a traditional New Orleans
brass band, a gospel choir, New Orleans jazz performers,
Cajun music, and the Mardi Gras Indians. A French Quarter
dining experience and an evening at the Audubon Aquarium
of the Americas will be other host-ticketed events.
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