International Service
The International Service Committee is chaired by the Junior Vice President, currently Rotarian Tris Tristram, and reviews international needs and recommends which international charity the Club should support each year. The committee also organises evenings out on an international flavour and runs fundraising events.
The major thrust of International activities for Rotary International over the last 25 years has been the eradication of Polio worldwide. We are now 99% of the way there and one of the Petersfield Rotarians visited India in connection with this.
Tris took part in a National Immunisation Day on February 7 2010 in Delhi - when a total of 172 million children in India were protected from the crippling and paralysing polio disease.
Tris had been looking forward to going: “It’s only when you see for yourself the terrible suffering caused by this disease that you can fully understand the need for action. This vaccine costs pennies and saves thousands of young lives. Nobody should face a lifetime of being painfully and severely crippled.
“It’s heartbreaking seeing tiny children affected by the polio virus, especially when it could have been avoided. Instead of running and playing as children should, they are struggling to stand. At home, we take it for granted that this disease is gone but here, it is very much a reality.”
Seven thousand nine hundred vaccination stations were set up in the city of Delhi alone, and welcomed families and their children on the National Immunisation Day. These stations alone needed approximately 22,500 volunteers to man them. The Rotary volunteers also went on a “mop-up” day knocking on doors and immunising the children who had missed the visit to the stations with the special polio vaccine, a s part of the service to the communities.
Once immunised, the children’s little fingers are dyed purple to keep track of who has already been given the protective medication, now known as the Purple Pinkie.
Find out more about the Rotary Thanks for Life campaign by visiting Thanks for Life
As part of the Rotary Thanks for Life Day this year we, assisted by some of the pupils planted lots of purple crocuses outside Herne School to represent the
Purple Pinkie mentioned above.
