For over 30 years, Rotary and its members have been committed to
fighting to eradicate polio across the world. The amount of
polio-endemic countries has dropped from 125 to just two, with over 2.5
billion children receiving vaccinations thanks to the help of Rotary.
With eradication now closer than ever, Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland’s latest campaign, Purple4Polio, is designed to unite communities to engage in activities as part of the final push to eradicate polio for good.
The campaign ties in with the 100 year anniversary of The Rotary
Foundation, Rotary’s own and only charity, which has played a key role
in making polio eradication become close to a reality, along with
hundreds of other projects both in Great Britain and Ireland and
overseas.
Rotary and the Royal Horticultural Society
It’s time to get your green fingers at the ready because one strand
of the Purple4Polio campaign is an exciting partnership between Rotary
International in Great Britain and Ireland and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).
The purple crocus is a symbol of Rotary’s worldwide campaign to
eradicate polio, with its colour representing the purple dye used to
mark the finger of a child who has been immunised.
The partnership will allow Rotary clubs to join forces with the RHS’s
community-based Bloom Groups and work in tandem to bring people
together, transform public spaces to brighten up the local area and
promote health and wellbeing by planting 5 million crocus corms. This
community ethos is a value shared by both Rotary and the RHS, and, with
the purple crocus planting also helping the RHS’s Greening Grey Britain campaign, we will together be adding a purple splash of colour and vibrancy to areas up and down the country
