Horsham Rotary Club to continue its community support and polio awareness at market stall

Members of the club will be in the Carfax on Saturday, October 31, to raise awareness about polio – following World Polio Day on Saturday, October 24 – and to launch the annual Children in Need campaign.

While the pandemic continues to prevent charities from hosting their usual fundraising activities, the club will also be looking for different ways it can help as more people find themselves in need due to the coronavirus.

“The needs of people are still there, and growing,” said Horsham Rotary Club president, Caroline Gould.

“Some of our activities continue in modified ways, but we’re looking for more ideas and participation from people in the community to help us provide more support.”

The polio story is one the Rotary Club of Horsham feels particularly illustrates the power of community, which is especially important in the time of Covid-19.

Poliomyelitis, or polio, was rampant a few decades ago and is a disease that targeted mostly children under the age of five, and created a sense of fear and uncertainty quite familiar in the world today.

“Polio couldn’t be cured, only prevented,” said Rhonda Boone, communications manager at the club.

“At its peak in the 1940s and 1950s, it paralysed or killed over half a million people worldwide every year.

“ A vaccine discovered in 1955 by Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburg in the US meant that people could be protected, but the challenge was how to distribute the vaccine worldwide.

“In 1988, Rotary International kicked off a major effort called the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).

“Rotary intended to use the power of its 35,000 clubs and 1.2 million members in 200 countries to make polio the second human disease, after smallpox, to be eradicated.”

Rotary’s collaboration strategy quickly attracted major partners, including the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which continues to double the amount raised.

In 1996, South African President Nelson Mandela partnered with Rotary to launch the ‘Kick Polio Out of Africa’ campaign and on August 25, 2020, the WHO declared the Africa region free of wild polio.

“Rotary has contributed more than $2.1 billion to fight polio, which has helped immunise and protect over 2.5 billion children around the world,” said Rhonda.

“When the GPEI was launched, there were 350,000 cases of polio every year. Today, the incidence of the disease has plummeted by more than 99.9%. Only Afghanistan and Pakistan are polio-endemic.

“Horsham and other local Rotary clubs continue to donate annually. The polio effort is commemorated through World Polio Day, an annual event held on October 24, the birthday of Jonas Salk.”

Rotary’s ‘monumental contribution’ to global efforts to eradicate polio was celebrated in the House of Commons in September at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Prime Minster Boris Johnson described it as ‘a fine example of the philanthropy and spirit of the British people’.

The Horsham Rotary Club, which was established in 1923, is currently finding ways it can carry on serving local and global communities during the pandemic, by continuing collecting for those in need, including emergency appeals as a crisis arises.

It donates around £45,000 a year to local causes and is currently adapting how it can continue to do so.

For example, a recent scavenger hunt by car was held which raised more than £700 for Horsham-based Action Medical Research.

Rhonda said: “Our members have diverse skills and backgrounds, and form lifelong friendships while serving others.

“If you’re interested in making a difference, please contact us. We’ll be at the Rotary stall in the Carfax on October 31.”

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