Foundation

The Rotary Foundation

Rotary International has a membership of over 1,200,000 people worldwide and is able to be a considerable force for good. Rotarians give service in their local communities and on a national and international scale. They also raise funds for local and international projects, and contribute to their own charity, The Rotary Foundation (TRF)

The Rotary Foundation then makes available grants to the donor Rotary clubs for larger projects, sometimes matching the money raised locally by their donor clubs. Sidcup’s Foundation Committee has the aims of promoting fund raising for TRF by the Sidcup Rotarians, and assisting them to qualify for Rotary Foundation grants for their own efforts.

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Polio Plus

One of the major achievements of TRF is the programme known as Polio Plus. Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal, infectious disease. It still strikes children, mainly under the age of five. The best protection is prevention - because there is no cure for polio. In 1985 there were 350,000 polio cases in 125 countries. Rotary International (RI) joined forces with the World Health Organisation to initiate a programme to eradicate the Poliomyelitis (Polio) virus from all those countries of the world where it was still rampant.

In 2007 the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation very generously gave The Rotary Foundation $100,000,000 and in 2009 increased this to $355,000,000 towards Polio eradication. Rotary agreed to raise $200,000,000 in matching funds by 2012 and actually raised $228,700,000. The Gates Foundation subsequently agreed to match all money raised by Rotary towards Polio eradication 2 to 1. This means for every £1.00 raised, The Gates Foundation will donate £2.00. One dose of the Polio vaccine used only costs 40 pence, but because of the living conditions in the countries where Polio is still rife, it is necessary to administer as many as 8 doses over several weeks if the vaccine is to remain in the body for 48 hours despite the high incidence of diarrhoea.

Rotarians actively participate in India’s National Immunisation Day on 21st February each year. The streets are flooded with Rotarians and other volunteer personnel to marshal the children and to administer doses of the vaccine, and each recipient is marked by dipping one finger in an indelible purple dye as he or she is given a gift to mark the event. A purple finger (purple pinkie) indicates that a dose has been received, so a child who has not been given a dose that day is recognisable by the lack of a ‘purple pinkie’ and also there is no possibility of a child ‘going round again’ to get more than one gift! In 2014 India was declared to be polio free. Rotarians have helped immunize more than 7.5 billion children against polio in 122 countries.

We have made tremendous progress since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched:

1. A 99.9% reduction in cases of illness caused by wild poliovirus.
2. 3 billion children immunized.
3. 125 countries where polio was endemic reduced to two — Afghanistan and Pakistan — with the virus contained in just a few districts and provinces.

But even just one case still represents one child’s life forever changed by polio. That’s why We won’t stop until we know that no child will ever again experience the paralyzing effects of polio.

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Global Grants

Global Grants support scholarships for graduate students studying abroad in one of the six areas of focus. Scholarships range from one to four years and therefore can include an entire degree programme. Prospective scholars must show proof of admission to the chosen university before the grant will be approved. The Foundation does not require global grant scholars to carry out ambassadorial duties, but the scholarship sponsor may encourage participation in club events or service projects.

We were allocated a Global Scholar for 2022-23 who has a place at the University of Westminster where her academic programme is an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, She has now submitted her dissertation to complete her course.