In July, we started a NEW ROTARY YEAR
The inauguration of a new president
At the end of June Tony Summersgill became the president of the Littleport Rotary Club. A recent Golf tournament at the, Sheringham Golf Club organized by Rotarian Colin Every, raised over £2000 for Rotary Charities.
Southery Play Group
The Southery play group needed help with equipment The Rotary Club of Littleport donated £500 to purchase new equipment. The Team gave a presentation at the Rotary Club in July, the picture on the left Shows the group after the presentation.
Lendwithcare
Rotary District 1080 is one of many Rotary districts worldwide working to make the World and our Communities a better place. Microfinance is one of an extensive range of projects aiming to reduce poverty and disease and to improve education and world peace. The Rotary Club of Littleport together with, partnership within local microfinance institutions, provide loans to entrepreneurs, in central Africa etc, to date we have donated £2000
See also https://www.lendwithcare.org/groups
At Aquafest Rotarians Ian Burrows & James Armstrong provided a new activity at our stall — Slot Car Racing or more commonly Scalextric the event was very busy. We raised £150 for charity
Coming UP…
We are planning a further Quiz night in October, together with 20,000 more Crocus’ being planted in the autumn, as a reminder to the eradication of Polio
The current status of the program to eradicate the crippling disease of Polio from the Planet is shown in the article below — The original program in the fight against polio was started 20 years ago by Rotary international
There continues to be a small number of Polio cases in Afghanistan and Pakistan, one more than this time last year, but with such low numbers it is difficult to draw any inference from this.
Afghanistan
There been seven cases this year, the last being on 3 March. This month the Afghan government (with the support of the Taliban) vaccinated 10 million children using 70,000 volunteers, an amazing effort for a poor country with little infrastructure riven by conflict.
Pakistan
There has been one case of Polio in Pakistan this year on the border with Afghanistan. Both countries are making a huge effort to reduce the risk to this cross-border population, in 2017 1.87million people were vaccinated in these areas.
Worldwide
What is probably less well known is that 50 countries are still being protected by the vaccinations against Polio. A huge amount has been learnt by the WHO (World Health Organization) as a result of Rotary’s effort to eradicate polio. As a result the system which has succeeded in most parts the world is now being engaged in the eradication the other diseases such as Tuberculosis, Malaria, and other acute respiratory diseases. The Bill Gates foundation have calculated that this has saved at least 100,000 lives per year on the back of the polio program
Simon Gorton — commented — Every time I research the current position I am amazed at the scale of the efforts to remove Polio and other diseases as a threat to humanity. Although the financial cost is fairly high what I find inspiring is the sheer effort by volunteers around the world to eradicate this disease for the sake of their fellow humans.