The tower of Gloucester Cathedral will be lit purple
Mon, Oct 21st 2019 at 8:00 pm- Mon, Oct 28th 2019 - 11:00 pm
The tower of Gloucester Cathedral was lit purple in support of Rotary’s project to rid the world of polio. Started in 1985, this initiative has reduced the number of endemic countries from 125 to 3 and polio cases from over 1000 a day to 22 in a year
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Since 1985, Rotary’s key humanitarian priority has been to rid the world of polio.
Rotary spearheaded the campaign at a time when there were over 1,000 polio cases a day in 125 countries, paralysing and even killing children.
Today, the number of cases is down by 99.9%.
Over the last 30 years, Rotary has donated US$1.8 billion to the eradication effort and has protected over 2.5 billion children from the disease through vaccination programmes.
Inspired in part by Rotary’s volunteer commitment and fundraising success, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was launched in 1988.
This remarkable partnership which includes Rotary, World Health Organization,
UNICEF, the US Center for Disease Control & Prevention and, more recently, the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation. In fact Bill and Melinda Gates set Rotary a challenge to
raise $50m a year for three years and for every dollar raised the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation would donate two dollars making a total of $450m over three years
Now why purple? Well during mass national immunisation days an immunised child
dips their finger into a purple dye to indicate they have received the vaccine.
The current emblem is Purple for Polio. A few years ago a British company gave us all a jar of plum jam for fundraising. Several members of Rotary@Kingsholm hosted tea parties themed around the plum jam. Another company offered Rotary 3m purple crocus corms at discount prices. Rotary@Kingsholm bought 1000 and planted them at Kingsholm Primary School. This year for a week in October, which includes world polio day, the tower of Gloucester Cathedral will be lit purple.
Despite there only being a handful of cases left in the world, continued campaigning, health worker training and vaccination programmes are essential to stop the disease returning and ensuring the world is certified polio-free.
Rotary members continue to be key players in many aspects of the polio programme including on the ground in a number of countries as well as fundraising and advocacy.
Failure to eradicate polio could result in as many as 200,000 new cases worldwide every year within a decade.
Rotary members in Great Britain and Ireland have been huge supporters of End Polio Now and you can be part of making history.
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