Rotary International Aid
Rotary gives aid to carefully selected projects abroad and also through Rotary Foundation has led the battle against polio since 1985.
End Polio Now via Rotary Foundation
Rotary has led the battle against polio since 1985 and kept the pressure on as worldwide cases plummeted from 350,000 per year to 42 in 2016. 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.
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Over the last 35 years, Rotary members, working with communities around the world, have contributed more than US$2.1 billion and countless volunteer hours to the fight to end polio. 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 and GAVI the Vaccine Alliance. These organisations work alongside governments of the world to end polio.
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Nearly 19 million people who would otherwise have been paralysed are walking, and more than 1.5 million people are alive who would otherwise have died. Despite there only being a handful of cases left in the world, continued campaigning, health worker training and vaccination programmes are essential to stop polio returning. Failure to eradicate polio could result in as many as 200,000 new cases worldwide every year within a decade. Now, Rotary and its partners are so very close to eradicating this dreadful illness
Support in Nepal
Since 1998, following the devastating earthquake, support has been given to the Nepalese community in partnership with the Kasthamandap Rotary Club in Kathmandu. Initially, funding was provided to refurnish a remote school in the Himalayas. Subsequently the two clubs have worked together to develop an education programme in the Nagarjun area North West of Kathmandu.
This will support four of the Government schools in raising the standards of education for children from a wide range of backgrounds. Educational standards are significantly below what is required to improve the well-being of these communities.
Talahado School
A member of our Rotary Club a long time resident in the St Francis Bay area in South East South Africa established links with the local Montessori pre-school. It provides education to the disadvantaged local community. This led to a request for funds to provide furniture for the school. To ensure the most was made of the donation it was decided to get a local carpenter to make what was required. Some examples can be seen in the photo.
Woking Students
Woking District Rotary has contributed to the development of local students through donation to support international projects they are undertaking internationally, for many years.
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Oli Quitman, a Woking resident at Durham University was one beneficiary, as part of a team which visited Borneo for 6 weeks in 2019. The first half of the expedition involved living in an isolated island community whilst aiding sea turtle conservation. It included beach clean-ups, surveys, and night patrols to help protect turtle nesting habitats. Travelling on into the rainforest, the team assisted a local charity, Project Orangutan, with conservation. Much of the work involved intense physical labour, including building new facilities for the orangutans to use, and farming to maintain food.
Oli later spoke to our Rotary club about his adventure.
Sand Dams
Sand dams are reinforced rubble cement walls built across seasonal sandy rivers. They are simple, low cost and low maintenance retaining rainwater and recharging groundwater, providing cost-effective water conservation
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Since 2002 Rotary in the UK and Ireland has been working with Excellent Developments to support the mission of conserving water in the drylands of Kenya. Over 200 Rotary clubs across 20 Districts have contributed to the funding and construction of 51 dams providing over 100,000 people with safe water.
The two Rotary clubs in Woking worked together to contribute to the funding of the Tassia ‘C’ dam that is now benefiting the villagers located in the Leruki Conservancy in northern Kenya.
Happy Hampers
Stanford, a small Rotary club in South Africa, helps feed the desperately under-privileged local community through 7 soup kitchens, operating throughout the year. The kitchens close over Christmas when many would go hungry. Several years a go it was decided to provide food bags that could be distributed during this period. Woking District were approached to help pay for the food. Over 300 bags are distributed each year. 40 or more are paid from the funds our Club donates.