In Melbourne, Australia, our latest lockdown, Lockdown 6.0 started on August 5th 2021 and ended October 21st 2021. It was supposed to be a seven-day quick circuit breaker but has been the longest seven days in history!
During this long drawn out affair, it has been hard to focus on why we are Rotarians. We cannot travel. We cannot meet and we cannot do the work that we joined Rotary to do. It is no wonder that we have lost the drive that we used to possess. There have been many blocks to stop us from doing good in the world and none are from our own doing.
So as of Thursday 21st of October at 11.59 pm, that all stops. We can crawl out of the COVID shadow and start to rebuild our Rotary efforts to make a difference. There is no doubt that our engagement in Rotary has suffered during this lockdown. It is like falling off a horse, you just have to brush yourself off and jump back into the saddle.
At this week's Rotary Club of Berwick meeting, I got a reminder that Rotary is still a powerful force and is doing incredible work in the world. PDG Tim Moore played a pre recorded video from Ann Lee Hussey about Rotary's involvement to end polio. The message was moving but not for the reasons I expected. The facts of the matter is that Rotary and its partners have reduced wild polio from over 400,000 in the1980's down to a handful in Afghanistan and Pakistan today. The underlying power of the message is that since 1988 16 million cases of paralytic polio have been averted thanks to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s (GPEI) vaccination campaigns. Rotary has done its share to make this happen but a lot of this work relies on fundraising to pay for the vacines to be delivered where they are needed.
Currently eight out of our 42 members have taken on the challenge to raise money to End Polio. Our goal is to raise $3000. Please donate if you can to support our members. https://www.rotarywalkwithus.org/fundraisers/berwickrotaryboomersandshakers
To really study where we are with Polio in the world, try this web site: https://ourworldindata.org/polio#historical-perspective
