Rotary District 7730

Dear Rotary Leaders!

This is my first access to the Internet since we arrived in India last Saturday night, so I am delighted to report our experiences to you. As you know Magda and Dave Baggett of the Fayetteville Rotary Club, Jo Barrow of the Swansboro Rotary Club, and I have joined many others from India and abroad to give the polio vaccine to the local children at the Polio Plus National Immunization Day (NID). We joined many throughout India hopefully inoculating tens of thousands of children five years old and under with two drops of the oral polio vaccine. The hard part was the publicity. Much effort went into getting the kids out to the vaccine centers. The NID was publicized on TV by local celebrities. Many older children were recruited to bring their younger brothers and sisters and other younger children to the NID centers. Working in partnership with the Rotary Club of Delhi West, we spent the early part of the morning bringing boxes of the vaccine, on ice, to the centers to be distributed. And then came the very gratifying part: giving the vaccine to the children each time knowing that we were saving a life. Over twenty five years ago, most of the developing world was effected by the polio epidemic. Because of the Rotary Foundation and Rotary volunteers, working in partnership with the CDC, the World Health Organization and UNICEF, polio is down to 4 countries, India included. This effort is known as “The Final Push” and we are honored to be a part of it.

In these last 4 days, we participated with Delhi West Rotary on a clean water project in a small, remote and poor Muslim village called Chahalka. This village is so remote that they were never helped by an NGO. This is part of a larger effort to free up the time of the local women so that they can become educated in a vocational skill, educate the children, and raise the community up to a higher quality of life. We simply worked as general laborers, but our work, the progress on the water project, and our friendship with the townspeople, enriched our lives.

For one day, we were honored to join the 25^th Rotary South Asia Goodwill Summit which included India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal, along with RI President-elect Wilf Wilkerson and an NID team from California. I got to renew my friendship with Umesh Kapoor, the 2000-02 GSE Team leader from India who stayed in our home 5 years ago. We ended our day with a reception at the presidential palace where the President of India Abdul Kalam addressed us. It was gratifying to see that Rotarians are Leading The Way in the effort to bring peace and goodwill in South Asia and particularly between India and Pakistan.

Looking forward to being back home in our District soon.

Lead The Way!