Welcome to the website of Rotary International District 1070, a district that covers the whole of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Rutland, Southern Lincolnshire and parts of Cambridgeshire.
The district has the famous Skegness, home of the orginal Butlin's, on the East Coast and then sweeps across the very rural farmland of the Lincolnshire Wolds and the Fens. Picturesque Lincoln with the cathedral a prominent feature from miles around.
Leicester itself is the home of the National Space Centre and burial site of Richard lll. Melton Mowbray is the producer of the famous pork pie.
Down into Northamptonshire, the one time home of shoe and boot making, at the south of the district we have the home of Grand Prix Racing Silverstone.
“The question is no longer, “How many children are there and where might we go to find the mall?” It is now, “How do we most efficiently vaccinate every child on this map?”
Innovations like this are a key reason for my optimism. But innovation has no moral valence by itself. It is not inherently good or bad, just irresistibly transformative. To make sure innovation transforms our world in positive ways, human beings need to point it in the right direction. That takes “public will.”
Many organizations helped push the eradication resolution through the World Health Assembly, but the one you wouldn’t expect is Rotary International. Rotary is a service organization with 1.2 million members in almost every country in the world, including more than 50,000 in Great Britain and Ireland.
Rotarians pledge to put service above self, their motto, but they have no specific global health mandate. They are not polio experts. They are regular people who go to work and spend time with their families. For three decades, they have also spent time advocating for polio eradication, raising money to support vaccination, and giving kids polio drops all over the world.
Other partners include the Centres for Disease Control, UNICEF, and the World Health Organization. We rely on them to excel at their jobs. But that is not enough. We also need people whose jobs have nothing to do with the health of poor people to act. That is public will.”