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The Rotary Club of Thornbury - Purple 4 Polio |
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Many Thornbury residents have noticed the temporary Rotary "Purple4Polio" banner at the Tesco Roundabout. This banner deserves some explanation. All will become clear when in a few weeks it will be joined by 5000 crocuses that have been planted in front of the banner. Yes they will be purple, and they celebrate a renewal of the "End Polio Now" campaign |
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This has been done with the kind permission of Tesco to highlight Rotary’s commitment to the global eradication of Polio. Tesco have further allowed us to bucket collect in aid of this project at their store on 25th February. |
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In 1985 the Rotary Club of Thornbury joined forces with all the other Rotary Clubs worldwide with the aim of eradicating Polio. Polio is incurable and completely vaccine- preventable. In the ensuing years Rotary has contributed in various currencies $1.6 billion and countless volunteer hours to immunize more than 2.5 billion children in 122 countries. |
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Rotary’s advocacy efforts have additionally played a role in decisions by donor governments to contribute more than $7.2 billion to the global effort. Its partners include World Health Organization, the US Centre for Disease Control, UNICEFF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Our Rotary Club of Thornbury has been proud to be associated with this project and together with other Clubs around the world have been instrumental in making redundant, iron lungs to the extent that there is now a generation of children and grandchildren who have no knowledge of their use. |
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Today there are only three countries that have so far never stopped transmission of the wild poliovirus: Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan, they are the reason why this project continues. We are pleased that less than 75 polio cases were confirmed in 2015 which is a reduction since the 1980’s when the world saw 1000 cases per Day. |
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Members of the public are thankfully interested , the purpose is to make people aware this Rotary work, we of course hope the good citizens of Thornbury will support us at Tesco on the 25th February safe in the knowledge that every penny raised will go to our Purple 4 Polio eradication project. |
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Why the colour purple? Well originally the Rotary campaign was called the "Purple Pinkie". Why was it called Purple Pinkie? When a child is vaccinated, they have a purple stamp put on their little finger. So each Purple Pinkie brings us closer to making Polio history. |
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