Clubs seek to increase awareness and understanding of the autism spectrum

By Christine Mungai

When schools in Kenya reopened in January 2021 after a nine-month closure due to COVID-19, Sylvia Mochabo was looking forward to her 11-year-old son, Andy, returning to the classroom. Their schedule, like those of millions of families around the world, had been disrupted by the pandemic, and for Andy, who was diagnosed with autism at age 3 and who struggles with adapting to changes in his routine, the closures and lockdowns were particularly challenging. But his first day back at school didn’t go as planned.

“His school refused to take him back until he was wearing a mask, which Andy isn’t able to do because autism makes him sensitive to physical sensations. Without speech therapy, he began drooling more. He found the mask unbearable,” says Mochabo, a member of the Rotary Club of Muthaiga. Because he wasn’t in school, Andy also lost access to discounts on occupational therapy sessions, which are crucial to his development. Now, Mochabo has to pay the full price for home-based support.

“I’ve had to reduce the number of sessions from thrice weekly to once; without the discount I can’t afford to do all three sessions, even though I know Andy needs them,” she says. “It’s heartbreaking.”

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) consist of a range of developmental disabilities that can make communication and social interaction difficult and can also cause behavioral challenges. People with autism may think, act, learn, and communicate in ways that are different from most other people. According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 160 children globally has an autism spectrum disorder.

In recent years, the reported prevalence of the disorder has been trending higher, and this is consistent across data sources from countries as diverse as Germany, Iran, and Japan, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is unclear how much of this increase is due to changes in clinical definitions of ASD or to better efforts to diagnose the condition. However, the CDC doesn’t rule out an absolute increase in the number of people with ASD, and researchers are looking into why this might be the case.

For Rotary member Corina Yatco-Guerrero, her child’s diagnosis came as a shock, even though she and her husband are medical practitioners — she’s a neuro-ophthalmologist and he’s a neurologist. It took them a while to accept their son’s diagnosis and find ways to support him with speech therapy, occupational therapy, and a special needs education.

“For me, the most important thing that parents and families should know is that autism is not a life sentence, that children with autism have a right to life and proper special education that will make them better equipped to face the challenges that they will face,” says Yatco-Guerrero, a member of the Rotary Club of Sta. Ana (Davao), Philippines.

“Parents must learn to accept and not dwell in their state of denial, and to love their children and give them the best in life,” she says. “A child with autism is lovable, and they deserve our love, too.”

Families of children with autism often have to grapple with the lack of social understanding about the condition, even in cosmopolitan cities. Many families experience social stigma, and in some countries the condition is frequently attributed to witchcraft or something that the parents did wrong.

Early interventions, starting before age 5, have been shown to yield the best results for children with autism. “Children need to be assessed at young ages to determine gaps in development and allow for early intervention,” says Pooja Panesar, director and co-founder of the Kaizora Centre for Neurodevelopmental Therapies, a Nairobi institution that uses a step-by-step approach to teach children crucial skills such as communication and toilet training, while reducing behaviors of concern.

“Through this process, we have had great success, from children receiving early intervention who transition into mainstream education to adults who are now living independently and maintaining permanent employment,” Panesar says.

There are several management styles for the condition, and one size does not fit all. Some children might need a lot of help in daily living, while others might be quite independent. “If a child is nonverbal, then having a speech therapist would help. If a child has sensory integration problems, an occupational therapist can help,” says Yatco-Guerrero.

Mochabo, a single mother of three, has found support and encouragement from her Rotary club, and with the help of fellow members, she has started to do more to spread awareness and advocate on behalf of children with special needs. Every year, in partnership with other clubs in Kenya, the Rotary clubs of Machakos, Nairobi, and Thika host the Sunshine Rally, a day of fun, games, and entertainment for children with disabilities.

“I attended a Sunshine Rally and realized that I wasn’t alone in this journey, and being a Rotarian gave me the desire to do more and to be of service to other families like mine,” says Mochabo.

Inspired by the rally, Mochabo founded an organization called Andy Speaks for Special Needs Persons, named for her son, to advocate on behalf of people with special needs and for an end to the stigma they face. “We can support each other all year round,” she says.

Yatco-Guerrero is also involved in creating awareness of autism, in her case through a nationwide organization called Autism Society of the Philippines (ASP). This group advocates for acceptance and integration of people with special needs into society.

“Our Rotary District 3860 has been actively advocating for awareness and acceptance,” Yatco-Guerrero says, “by joining ASP’s annual Angels Walk, a one-day march of persons with autism and their families and teachers. It draws thousands of people by the year, thus earning a spot in the news, which in turn helps disseminate autism awareness throughout the country.”

Other clubs around the world also have organized projects related to autism. The Rotaract Club of Çekirge, Turkey, put together a series of monthly art workshops for autistic artists working with mosaic and painting, and they plan to organize an exhibition of the artworks to raise awareness about autism. In Malaysia, a global grant funded a series of workshops, hosted by more than a dozen clubs, that provided early-intervention training for teachers and primary caregivers of children with autism. The Interact Club of Rio Claro-Cidade Azul, Brazil, with support from its sponsor Rotary club and District 4590, created the Inclusion Symphony, a music therapy room for children with autism, to provide a differentiated therapeutic space and to stimulate and expand the interaction and communication capacity of people with autism. And the Rotary Club of Chicagoland Korean-Northbrook, Illinois, organized a global grant-supported vocational training program for youth on the spectrum.

For Yatco-Guerrero, ultimately the home is ground zero for any kind of autism intervention. “Having a special-needs child means the whole family must get involved to make things work and make life bearable for all,” she says. “It is a labor of love because it is not easy, and it will test your patience to the fullest. But it is your own child who needs your help, and help you will definitely give. It involves a lot of sacrifice, a lot of patience and understanding.” 

Christine Mungai is a writer and journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. Her work has been published in the Africa Report, Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Al Jazeera English. Mungai is the curator for Baraza Media Lab in Nairobi, a co-creation space for public-interest storytelling.

World Autism Awareness Day is 2 April.

Help support autism-related projects through The Rotary Foundation. Make your gift at rotary.org/donate.

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Ukraine Rotariets magazine editor Mykola Stebljanko, discusses how Rotary clubs in the country are helping and how he is adapting to the increasingly dire situation.

The war in Ukraine has displaced millions of people, creating a devastating humanitarian crisis along the country's borders. In response, The Rotary Foundation set up an official channel for donors worldwide to support relief efforts. At press time, more than $3.5 million has been contributed to the fund.

While the situation is evolving quickly, this interview with Rotariets magazine editor Mykola Stebljanko, conducted in late March, offers a telling picture of the troubling events in Ukraine as well as Rotary's tremendous relief efforts there. Stebljanko discusses how Rotary clubs in the country are helping and how he is adapting to the increasingly dire situation.

What's your situation there now?

I'm living in Odesa. It's the third most populous city in Ukraine, an important port city on the Black Sea coast, in the southwest. Currently, there's no military presence here, but we live under the constant threat of bombs and missiles. Often, air raid sirens will wake us up in the middle of the night. We have to get up and hide in a safe place. In my apartment, the safest place is the bathroom. We huddle together and spend the rest of the night there. Occasionally, we experienced a few rocket attacks, but most of the time, it's a safe place.

As of now, most of the military actions center around Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, and Kharkiv. More than a dozen smaller cities are also under attack. The city of Mariupol in the southeast of Ukraine is under siege. More than 2,500 civilians have died in Mariupol and close to 400,000 people are trapped, and the Russian army has stopped anyone from escaping. Many are without electricity, water, and heat.

What is happening with Rotary clubs in Ukraine?

There are 62 Rotary clubs in Ukraine. At the moment, only the Rotary Club of Kherson has temporarily suspended meetings, because the city is under the control of the Russian military. I recently spoke with the Rotarians there. None of them are able to escape and they are trapped inside the city. They no longer meet or do any projects for fear of personal safety. Our district governor sent a letter of support to all Rotarians in Kherson.

Other Rotary clubs continue to operate and are trying their best to conduct Rotary services. We have created a special coordination committee. Each club has a representative on the committee, and we meet online twice a day to discuss issues that are facing our clubs.

What kind of relief projects are Ukrainian clubs doing?

Our Rotary services fall into the following three areas:

• The first involves providing help to our hospitals, where a large number of wounded civilians are being treated. The hospitals are in dire need of medical supplies. Our district has set up special accounts and has received about US$100,000 from Rotary clubs and districts around the world. We have already purchased and distributed medicine and equipment. We have also received two Rotary Foundation disaster response grants.
• Second, we are working to coordinate humanitarian aid. Rotary clubs and districts are sending aid via trucks, ships, and air carriers. We are rebuilding Rotary's humanitarian hubs along Ukraine's borders with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. They have received all the supply items and sent them across the border to our cities. Then, we have different hubs inside Ukraine near the border regions, where Rotarians distribute this humanitarian help to the cities that are in dire need of it. Most of the items are clothes, food, and medicine.
• Third, we are trying to help Rotarians' family members who want to leave the country. We have received many requests from Rotarians in Europe and America who would like to host our family members and relatives.

Why don't you leave Ukraine?

I'm already a refugee. I lived in Simferopol, the capital of Crimea, for 40 years. But in 2015, I had to leave my native city because of the Russian annexation of Crimea. So, my wife, Olga, and I moved to Odesa. We felt our move to Ukraine would keep us safe. When people asked us why we do not want to leave Odesa and go outside Ukraine, I always answer: We were forced to leave our motherland once in 2015. We don't want to leave our country again. We are Ukrainians and we would like to stay in Ukraine.

What's your message to the Rotary clubs around the world?

On behalf of Rotarians in Ukraine, I would like to say a big thank you to all our Rotary members who have helped us in Ukraine. It means a lot to us during this difficult time in our country's history. At the same time, I would like to appeal to Rotary people to lobby their governments and push for peace. We are grateful to our friends around the world who are helping us.

• This story originally appeared in the May 2022 issue of Rotary magazine.

Can an all-female anti-poaching unit stop wildlife crime in an African game preserve — without guns?

by Nick Dall                  Photography by Bobby Neptune

Nxumalo and Malungane, who both grew up near the unit's headquarters but only got to know each other since they became Mambas, are checking, as they do every day of their 21-day shift, for breaches in the fence. Mostly this entails collecting rocks to shore up the places where animals such as warthogs and leopards have tried to burrow their way under, but periodically they come across a spot where humans have cut the fence to hunt animals for bushmeat or, worse, poach rhinos for their horns.

In 2013, when the first Mambas began patrolling the reserve, they quickly discovered that rhino poaching was only part of the problem. The park was also losing hundreds of animals of all species to snares every year. "It was embarrassing," recalls Craig Spencer, 48, as he sits by a bushveld braai (barbecue) and talks over the calls of a nearby hyena. A maverick South African conservationist, he was head warden of Balule, a private animal preserve. "I should have known what was happening under my nose. It took the Mambas to show me what was going on."

White rhinos have been hunted almost to extinction in Africa. Of the continent's 18,000 remaining white rhinos, nearly 90 percent are in South Africa, the species' last best hope. Kruger is home to by far the biggest white rhino population, as well as about 300 of the world's 5,600 remaining black rhinos.

The rhinoceros horn is prized in some countries, used as a traditional medicine and a status symbol. According to the Wildlife Justice Commission, a horn fetches an average of $4,000 per pound in Africa, and as much as $8,000 per pound in Asia; given that a set of white rhino horns typically weighs 11 pounds, it's worth between $44,000 and $88,000. South Africa's per capita income is about $5,000 per year and its pre-COVID-19 unemployment rate was about 29 percent. Therefore, a rhino, sadly, is a tempting target. In 2017, poachers killed more than 500 rhinos in Greater Kruger National Park, including 17 in Balule.

"Poachers make me angry," Nxumalo says, because they are killing the animals that all South Africans should be preserving for future generations. While Nxumalo is fully aware that some people poach only out of a desperation to feed their families, her commitment to the cause is unwavering. She points out that it would be devastating for both tourism and conservation to lose a member of what's called the "Big Five," an old hunting term that refers to the five most sought-after animals in Africa: lions, leopards, elephants, buffalo, and rhinos. Rhinos, along with elephants, are keystone megaherbivores that shape the landscape in ways that benefit other species. And the big animals in any ecosystem are usually the canaries in the coal mine, to abuse the phrase. "If we can't prevent keystone species from going extinct," says Tom Tochterman, "other species are also doomed."

Since 2009, when he had an "aha!" moment during his first photo safari in South Africa, Tochterman, 60, has been a passionate supporter of this nature reserve. A retired real estate developer and a member of the Rotary Club of Chelan, Washington, he has since founded a nonprofit called Rhino Mercy, which strives to fight rhino poaching, and developed a luxury photo-safari program that helps to fund conservation work. He also earned a PhD by researching the influence of cognitive dissonance on the consumption of natural resources and ecosystem degradation.

In addition, Tochterman was a founding member of the Rotary Action Group for Endangered Species (RAGES), which has the goal of improving the lives of people by improving the habitats and lives of endangered animals of all types. He welcomes the recent addition of protecting the environment to Rotary International's areas of focus. "We firmly believe that healthy landscapes contribute to healthy communities," he says, adding that "the Mambas have shown that the reverse is also true."

In 2010, Tochterman was at a bush camp, sitting around a campfire with Spencer, the former game warden who is now his close friend and partner, drinking rum-and-cokes and talking long into the night, when they lit a spark that would grow to become the Mambas. "Across Africa, the default response to poaching has been to bring in more men with more guns," Tochterman says. "And it hasn't worked anywhere." It dawned on them that the only way to change the narrative was to shape the minds of the next generation, and that the best way to reach the children was through their mothers.

Tochterman and Spencer eventually learned about a government program to employ women as environmental monitors in conventional agriculture; they thought they could maybe stretch the job description to include "game ranger," but senior management at South African National Parks questioned the concept of unarmed women operating in areas where lions, leopards, rhinos, elephants, and buffalo roam free. Tochterman was told on more than one occasion that this was a "stupid, dumb idea" that "could only have come from America."

When the two men were finally given a chance to put their theory into action, the candidates shortlisted by bureaucrats in the government program were told what the job would entail — and they all quit. So Spencer and Tochterman got permission from the local chiefs to go into communities near the park and look for the right kind of people. The Black Mambas name was chosen by the first group, says Tochterman, symbolizing "how seriously they took their opportunity to enter an industry that had previously been off-limits to women. They wanted to make a statement that they were not window dressing."

Word quickly spread, and within months the Mambas were receiving unsolicited applications from local women almost every day. Since the beginning, the day-to-day operations of the Mambas have been managed by Spencer's nonprofit, Transfrontier Africa. Tochterman was key in building and financing the Mambas' operations hub as well as the separate compound where the women stay during their shifts. He had also spent six years in the military police, so he was able to provide training in skills such as handcuffing a person. Tochterman's Rhino Mercy nonprofit acts as the Mambas' international fundraising arm, and it has brought them financial security. The government recently stopped funding the women's basic salaries (around $450 per month), which was a small fraction of the total cost of the program. Tochterman says that all told, employing one Mamba costs upwards of $50,000 per year.

Nkateko Mzimba, who was part of the Mambas' second cohort in 2014, remembers many men in her hometown teasing her about the job and belittling her chances of survival in what they deemed to be a man's world. Their predictions very nearly came true when, during her first few months with the Mambas, she and two colleagues were repeatedly charged by a pride of lions and had to be rescued from a tree by a passing vehicle. "I tried to quit," she remembers. "But after counseling I decided to stay and prove the doubters wrong." Looking back, Mzimba, now a sergeant who will soon qualify as a professional field guide, realizes that the whole situation could have been avoided if she had better read the lions' behavior.

Mzimba now ensures that every patrol includes a veteran Mamba and that armed response is always on standby. (The Mambas' every move is tracked from a central operations room.) In their first year, it was not uncommon for the Mambas to find 70 snares in a day. They also came across several "bushmeat kitchens," large operations for butchering and drying meat, within the reserve itself.

One full-moon night in 2015, a patrol of Mambas responded to the sound of gunfire and startled a group of poachers who had just killed a rhino. After briefly giving chase in their vehicle, the Mambas returned to the scene to find two rhinos dead and a third one wounded. Despite the best efforts of emergency veterinarians, the third, too, succumbed. The only small mercy of this grisly episode was that the poachers didn't get their prize.

Knowing that the Mambas have played a part in reducing poaching feels "really amazing," says Nxumalo, more so because it's a job that she says she grew up thinking was "supposed to be done by men." To this day, many in the conservation industry in South Africa still feel that women have no place in the anti-poaching arena and that conducting unarmed patrols in Big Five areas is foolhardy. "I don't think men would want to work unarmed in a Big Five area," says Nxumalo with a laugh. "A man would come up with so many reasons why he needs a gun. But for us it's more about reading the animals' behavior. We understand that it's not really about guns."

Through their community connections, the Mambas are also helping to change the cops-and-robbers narrative that has plagued the conservation movement in South Africa since its inception. While nature conservation is often depicted as noble protectors of the environment doing battle with evil poachers and exploiters, this ignores more complex social, political, and economic realities. Shortly after the land that would become the Kruger National Park was set aside and protected in 1898, some 3,000 people belonging to the Tsonga ethnic group were forcibly removed from the land. Fences were erected, national borders that had previously been recognized only on maps were enforced, and people were fined or imprisoned for "trespassing" on the land they had always lived on and hunting the animals they had always eaten. During apartheid, the fences became more impenetrable and the sentences harsher.

This history is vital to understanding how rangers and poachers can come from the same communities — or families. And it's why many of the people who have lived their entire lives on the fringes of one of the world's most iconic national parks know almost nothing about it.

Nxumalo had been to Kruger a few times, but had no real affinity with the bush. After passing a panel interview and a fitness test with flying colors, she and eight other recruits, including Malungane, began their basic training. Training was hard, she says, involving exercises such as "running the whole day in the sun with only a small bottle of water." Now she looks back on that time with appreciation: "Training gave me that go-ahead, that I can be more and do more."

After racking up thousands of kilometers of foot patrols in Big Five areas, Nxumalo loves the bush and remains devoted to the cause. She's not alone — all of the women from her cohort are still Mambas. And they're proud to pass on what they've learned. "We won't only teach our own kids; we will tell other girls that they can do anything," Nxumalo says. "We are telling every lady out there that you can do more, you can be more." While they never go home in their uniforms (a poacher could steal one from a clothesline and use it to infiltrate the park), Nxumalo makes no attempt to hide what she does. "You have to be proud of what you do," she explains. "This inspires others to walk tall. I've always known I could do a lot. But the Mambas really brought it out of me."

The Mambas' salary is considered quite good for the area, so in addition to using her income to support her mother and her sister, Nxumalo has been paying her own university fees. She recently completed the first year of a teaching degree online. Mzimba uses her income to fund and run a food pantry for hungry neighbors — which further aids in reducing poaching.

A typical day for the Mambas involves rising at dawn for a fence patrol or snare sweep (both on foot) and conducting nightly observations from a blind or vehicle. Gunshots, torchlight, and the smell of tobacco smoke are all telltale signs of poacher activity, but these days Nxumalo says the Mambas are more likely to be interrupted by a leopard or a herd of elephants. "They are so peaceful at night," she says. "Sometimes they block the way, but we never rush them."

Weekly tasks for the Mambas include searching the compounds where reserve staff and contractors live, conducting roadblocks, and speaking to tourists and local communities about the importance of wildlife conservation. "If nothing happens on a patrol, that is a big success," Nxumalo says. "If I don't find any snares, that is a bonus because it means that no one has come in to plant a new snare and no one has cut the fence since I last checked it. It's a huge relief."

Our progress in the fight against polio shows why vaccination is important

Increasing awareness about the power of vaccines and closing immunization gaps could protect millions of people worldwide from vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio, according to the World Health Organization. World Immunization Week, 24-30 April, is an opportunity to focus on that work, and the robust polio eradication infrastructure built by Rotary and our partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) provides a model for it.

The GPEI estimates that polio vaccines have saved an estimated 20 million children around the world from paralysis. When Rotary helped launch the GPEI in 1988, the disease paralyzed more than 1,000 people worldwide every day, most of them young children. Since then, Rotary and its partners have reduced the number of polio cases by 99%, and in 2021 there were just six cases of polio caused by the wild poliovirus. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries where the wild poliovirus remains endemic.

The progress against polio is the result of the efforts of countless volunteers and health workers who immunize children in hard-to-reach communities and establish real-time global surveillance and outbreak response mechanisms. The polio eradication infrastructure has been used to fight other infectious diseases and undertake crucial health interventions, including supporting COVID-19 prevention and vaccination efforts.

With our decades of experience in bringing polio to the brink of eradication, Rotary has been able to highlight the power and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines. Since the pandemic began in 2020, Rotary members have helped health authorities communicate lifesaving information about COVID-19, dispel misinformation, and support fair and equal access to vaccines.

Download Rotary's World Immunization Week toolkit for graphics and information.

Every Vaccine Counts Video

SPH Week At a Glance

Why it’s important to consider gender at all levels of eradication work

by Heather Monnet, External Relations Officer and Gender Focal Point for Polio Eradication, World Health Organization

How do issues surrounding gender create barriers to polio eradication? 

Our ultimate objective is to reach every last child with a polio vaccine. The role of the mother and father in reaching those children is very important, and we must understand the dynamics between them in order to achieve our goal. For example, a mother may want to have her child vaccinated, but that would require her to spend a day walking to a health center or market — and she might not be able to do that unless she gets permission from her husband. Or if her child falls ill and experiences paralysis in the arm or leg, the mother might have to seek permission from her husband to take the child to the health center. There could be a delay of several days that would affect our ability to take stool samples and determine whether that child has polio or not.

Do more boys than girls receive vaccines?

On a global level, there is very little discrepancy between reaching boys and girls. You also see a more or less equal distribution of cases of polio between boys and girls. But the global statistics can mask disparities at the local level. We know that we have communities that are not being reached; we need to understand why we’re not reaching them. Gender plays a huge role in both supply of and demand for immunization. Who is providing the immunization — a man or a woman? Who is the decision-maker — mom or dad? And how do the immunizer and the decision-maker work together?

What are the key points in the gender strategy you helped develop for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI)?

The polio program has typically engaged women as frontline health workers because in some cultures, mothers are more likely to open the door to a female vaccinator. But women should not just be part of the delivery of the program. They should also be part of its design; they should be supervisors and team leads, and hold positions at the district level to make sure we are meeting the needs of communities. We also need to understand why we have trouble retaining female vaccinators. We want them to keep working with us.

We must look at our data in a way that allows us to understand the program better and to see where there may be gaps. Collecting and analyzing sex-disaggregated data will help us to understand if gender-related barriers are preventing us from reaching zero-dose children — children who have not received any vaccines — and to refine the way we plan campaigns in those countries.

The GPEI’s new strategy places a huge focus on community engagement. We’re looking at the supply and demand sides in communities. How do we create a demand that ensures that parents want to take their children to be immunized? We need to make sure that the offered immunization services are acceptable to parents.

Besides gender, are there strategies that focus on other types of diversity?

We’re also looking at engaging people with disabilities. And gender also covers economic status: A lot of gender disparities are much more pronounced at different economic levels as well as in different ethnic and age groups. For example, the decision-making power of women in developing countries who are not educated is more limited, which will impact their ability to make health care decisions for the family. All of those things interact.

In the last mile of eradication, we need to leave no stone unturned to understand which children we are missing and why. Looking at gender is one more way to make sure that we’re reaching all children. Fathers have just as much of a role to play as mothers. How do we overcome barriers, so that men are engaged in the decision-making process and so that they allow their children to be immunized?

Rotary is so well-positioned to be a lead on gender. It isn’t a women’s issue — it’s everybody’s issue.

This story originally appeared in the December 2021 issue of Rotary magazine.

by Diana Schoberg

In December 2017, on his first night as a Peace Corps volunteer in the ancient North Macedonian city of Štip, Cal Mann was welcomed with a raucous party at a rustic cabin far outside of town. There was an abundance of food and drinks, and a boom box blared local music. As the party raged well past midnight, Mann watched, beer in hand. “I’m like, I can’t do this for two years, that’s for sure,” he recalls.

So you can understand his trepidation the next day when he found out a barbecue was in the works. Being a good sport and new to the city, he opted to go — a pivotal decision, it turns out. At the barbecue he struck up a conversation with a man named Zoran Kolev, who spoke English. As talk came around to Mann’s work as a Peace Corps volunteer, Kolev mentioned that there was a new service club in the city: the Rotary Club of Štip.

“He told me they had just started the club a few months before,” Mann says. “They didn’t really know what Rotary was, but someone had told them it was a good thing to do.” This was great news to Mann, who had been a Rotary member since 2004 (and who currently belongs to the Rotary E-Club of Silicon Valley).

“I was thrilled to have met someone involved in Rotary so I could tap into my experience there. And they were happy to have someone who knew what Rotary was.”

Mann’s primary assignment with the Peace Corps was to work with a legal clinic for Roma residents, but volunteers are encouraged to take on a side project. Rotary became his. “I had just linked up with a club of people with big networks in the community, and most spoke English,” Mann says. “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid. I figured that’s a pretty good opportunity. I better jump on it.”

Mann connected the club with a youth group and worked on small projects such as litter cleanups. When two Peace Corps volunteers in Štip who were teaching English needed more books, Mann talked to the club about finding a local distributor and also reached out to his friends at the Rotary Club of La Jolla, California, where he’d been a member previously, to connect them with the Štip club so that they could work together on the project.

Mann’s supervisor at the Peace Corps took notice. By the end of 2019, Peace Corps Northern Macedonia had placed four Peace Corps volunteers with Rotary clubs in the country. “The clubs loved it because they got volunteers who were really knowledgeable in the area of community development and who had a lot of ideas, energy, time, and skills,” Mann says. “The volunteers loved it because Rotary clubs immediately gave them a good connection to their community and a natural circle of friends.”

It was a match made in heaven. Rotary and the Peace Corps seemed meant for one another — as subsequent developments would demonstrate.

It was an impromptu speech by John F. Kennedy, just weeks before the 1960 presidential election, that catapulted the idea of a volunteer corps of Americans into public consciousness. Speaking from the steps of the student union at the University of Michigan, he challenged students, who had been waiting until well after midnight for his arrival, to contribute part of their life to service. The idea took hold, and hundreds of students signed petitions pledging to volunteer. In March 1961, President Kennedy signed an executive order creating the Peace Corps. “‘Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country’ was very real for me,” says Ted Bendelow, a member of the Rotary Club of Mead, Colorado, who joined the Peace Corps six months after Kennedy’s assassination and served in Liberia from 1964 to 1966.

In the 60 years since its creation, more than 240,000 Americans have served in the Peace Corps. Chances are there might be a returned Peace Corps volunteer (known as an RPCV) in your club or district. “They pop up in Rotary more than you might think,” says Charlie Hunt, a member of the Rotary Club of Denver Lodo, who served in Vanuatu from 2006 to 2008. Hunt recalls attending a Rotary club meeting while traveling to another part of the United States and hearing an opinionated academic speaking about Iran. “A Rotarian took her to task,” Hunt says. “He said he had spent two years in Iran. He had been a Peace Corps volunteer.”

The relationship between Rotary International and the Peace Corps, made official with a 2014 partnership agreement, has its foundation in the organizations’ shared values. The mission of the Peace Corps — “to promote world peace and friendship” — is one Rotary has embraced for more than 100 years. And the Peace Corps’ chief areas of focus — agriculture, community economic development, education, environment, health, and youth in development — have much in common with Rotary’s.

The Peace Corps has three goals: providing training for men and women in interested host countries; helping people in those countries to better understand Americans; and helping Americans to better understand other peoples. Service, therefore, is meant to continue once volunteers return home. “The third goal is not necessarily just about telling stories about your Peace Corps experience,” Hunt says. “It’s about being active in your community and how you can best take the things you’ve done in the Peace Corps and apply them when you come back.”

Steve Werner, a member of the Rotary Club of Denver Southeast and a Peace Corps volunteer in Korea from 1976 to 1978, recalls a meeting in the early 1990s with JFK’s brother-in-law Sargent Shriver, who had served as the first director of the Peace Corps. Then the board chair for the National Peace Corps Association, Werner stopped by Shriver’s office to have him sign some fundraising letters, a task he thought would take only 15 minutes. But Shriver was in the mood to talk. “He told me that the vision was that once a Peace Corps volunteer, we would always be a Peace Corps volunteer,” Werner says. “We would continue to serve after we got home to be examples to our fellow Americans. It was a big part of my motivation for becoming a Rotarian.”

Werner served another tour as a Peace Corps volunteer in the country of Georgia in 2016, this time with Peace Corps Response. While similar in approach to the two-year traditional program, Peace Corps Response assignments are shorter (generally 9-12 months) and involve higher impact projects geared to volunteers with more technical expertise in a particular program area.

Elsewhere in 2016, Andy Lenec was listening to NPR with his son when he heard an interview with the oldest active Peace Corps volunteer at the time: 87-year-old Alice Carter, who had just finished her first year in Morocco. “I’d been a Rotarian for over 25 years and service is second nature to me,” Lenec says. “I looked at my son, and he said, ‘Go for it, Dad.’ The next thing I know, I’m filling out the Peace Corps application form online.”

Lenec was assigned to Truskavets, a small city in western Ukraine near the Polish border where a Rotary club had applied for a Peace Corps volunteer in partnership with the city government and library. The club was small but committed. “Because of economic struggles, Rotary in Ukraine can cost as much as one month’s salary for annual dues,” Lenec says. “Many just cannot afford it. So a club of what used to be 20 was down to maybe 4.”

Once in Truskavets, Lenec decided that he wanted his side project for the Peace Corps to involve young people. He proposed an international youth conference to the Rotarians, and they jumped at the idea, as did the city’s mayor. As Lenec traveled to other Rotary clubs to encourage them to support the conference, a Rotarian asked if the conference could be turned into a Rotary Youth Leadership Awards event, which was defunct in the country. Lenec had been involved in RYLA for years and had seen the impact it makes on youth. Now he had a new goal: “We were going to revive RYLA in Ukraine,” he says.

Unfortunately, Lenec became ill while planning the event and had to return to Colorado, where he is now a member of the Rotary Club of Denver Lodo. But another Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine, Shannon Carter, stepped in and worked with Rotarians to keep the momentum going. During the summer of 2019, the RYLA took place; 17 young people from Ukraine, Japan, and Armenia participated. “It cemented faith in the program,” Carter says. Carter then helped organize a virtual RYLA in 2020 with more than 700 registered participants.

Unlike Lenec with his decades of Rotary experience, Carter had none. But she soon discovered how valuable the Rotary network would be, both with RYLA and her future projects. Following up on work Lenec had done to raise awareness of the RYLA project with clubs in North America, Carter was introduced to Gordon Crann, a member of the Rotary Club of Hamilton After Five, Ontario. Crann, who has an extensive global network as past chair of both the Rotary Action Group for Peace and the Rotary Action Group for Community and Economic Development, offered to help Carter promote RYLA. Then he went one step further: He suggested she also apply for a Rotary Peace Fellowship.

“I was very impressed by Shannon and her organizational ability,” Crann says. “She was the key person in bringing everything together, and this was an interna-tional effort. Peace Corps volunteers have shown they have a commitment to Service Above Self by taking time off [for public service], when they could be making a lot more money in jobs in the United States.”

Carter applied, and today she is a Rotary Peace Fellow at the University of Bradford, England, and a member of the Rotaract Club of Lviv International, Ukraine. “I went into RYLA anticipating personal growth, but I didn’t foresee the international network I would gain that would provide future opportunities like the Rotary Peace Fellowship,” Carter says. “My experience as a Peace Corps volunteer cemented my confidence in myself and made me realize we are fully able to do what we want in life.”

One of the driving forces behind the Rotary-Peace Corps partnership at the international level is a group of returned Peace Corps volunteers from Colorado who named themselves the “Tiger Team,” after a dog owned by one of its members. The group began meeting in November 2009 at the instigation of Sue Fox, a past president of the Rotary Club of Denver and a returned Peace Corps volunteer who served in Liberia from 1968 to 1970. Fox recognized the potential for the two groups; as she told a local business magazine at the time, “RPCVs and Rotarians are kindred spirits, seeking the same goals embodied in Rotary’s motto, Service Above Self.”

Students register for the regional English-language spelling bee in Štip. Nationwide, more than 3,000 students participate in this highly competitive contest, which is facilitated by volunteers from the Peace Corps and Rotary.

The Tiger Team expanded to include other Rotarians as well as returned Peace Corps volunteers who were not affiliated with Rotary. Their group, which became the organization Partnering for Peace, proposed to Rotary International and the Peace Corps administration that a formal alliance be established between the two organizations. That step was taken in May 2014, and the partnership was recently renewed for another three years.

by Aidan O’Leary                Illustration by Viktor Miller Gausa

“There’s something about the whole idea of eradicating polio that grabs the imagination,” says Aidan O’Leary. “Most people talk about making steps toward achievements, and it’s almost always into the never-never. Eradication is a zero-sum game; anything short of zero is failure. You keep getting closer and closer, but ultimately the only number that actually matters is zero.”

Although O’Leary, the polio eradication director for the World Health Organization, is speaking from his home in Galway, against the verdant backdrop of western Ireland, his focus is on war-torn Afghanistan and the parched and dusty plains of Pakistan — the last two places on the planet where wild polio still thrives.

Even during a pandemic, even as grim realities confront him, O’Leary conveys a sense of optimism about the possibility of finally eradicating polio. “Particularly in the days of COVID-19, there is something that really resonates about snuffing out a highly communicable infectious disease,” he says. “As COVID has taken off, it has also led a lot of people to better understand why now is the time to finish this job with polio.”

Yet O’Leary’s optimism is shaded with a sense of urgency and pragmatism. “There is absolutely no case for complacency here,” he says. “What is really important is that we double down on reaching the persistently missed children who are a top priority for our program.”

O’Leary, who began his tenure as WHO’s polio chief in January, came into the job knowing the terrain well. He formerly led UNICEF’s polio eradication efforts in Pakistan and was the head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, organizing the UN’s emergency response during crises.

O’Leary says he understands the difference Rotary can make — both in a community and in the global fight against polio. In Galway, a local tradition involves kicking the limestone wall at the end of a 2-mile stroll on the Salthill Promenade along Galway Bay (the reason for doing so has been lost in the mists of time). In 2012, O’Leary explains, the Rotary Club of Galway-Salthill installed on that wall a box that bears the slogan “Small Change, Big Impact” and encourages walkers to leave a small donation, with all money collected going to local charities and institutions.

In July, weeks before the dramatic turn of events in Afghanistan, O’Leary joined Rotary magazine senior staff writer Diana Schoberg and Dave King, editor of Rotary magazine for Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland, on a Zoom call to discuss the new strategy of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) and the new polio vaccine, and how they will be used to eradicate polio — once and for all.

What is the latest update on wild poliovirus?

The numbers are extremely encouraging. We’ve gone over a very bumpy road during the last two years. We had a fivefold increase in cases between 2018 and 2019, when we saw 176 cases, and we had 140 cases in 2020. But we’ve recorded just two cases this year [as of 27 July] — one each in Afghanistan and Pakistan. [Both cases were in January.]

The particularly encouraging part right now is that the program has a very elaborate network of environmental testing sites for sewage — almost 100 sites in Afghanistan and Pakistan that cover all of the major population centers. In 2020, almost 60 percent of the monthly test samples came back positive for poliovirus. This year to date, that percentage is probably around 15 per-cent. We have been unable to detect any wild poliovirus in Afghanistan since 23 February, and we’ve seen just five isolates in Pakistan since 12 April.

Why do you think that is? Given that some polio immunization campaigns had to be suspended last year, you’d think the numbers would have gone in the other direction. Is it because so many elements of society were shut down due to the pandemic?

While conditions in 2020 were certainly adverse both for surveillance and for the campaign operations, there are two areas that are helping us this year. One is reduced mobility — both within Afghanistan and Pakistan, and across the borders. When you look particularly at the experience in India, with the explosion of COVID cases in the first and second quarters of 2021 — and what were some very shocking images of funeral pyres — I believe that the drop in mobility has had an impact. There has also been a change in social norms, very simple things like social distancing and hand washing. Maybe that has made some impact, as well. But those are short-term changes.

With the conflict in Afghanistan, we don’t believe that the benefits we’re seeing from reduced mobility will continue indefinitely. We need to continue to prepare for the possibility of large-scale displacements across borders. We need to grab the opportunity that we have.

Now we’re coming into the high season for polio transmission, so we’ll continue to wait and see. There’s certainly no complacency from our program.

"The single most important relationship that the program has is between a frontline vaccinator and the caregiver who answers the knock at the door."

Vaccines are on everyone’s mind because of COVID. Has that affected acceptance of the polio vaccine?

For me, the more fundamental issues in Afghanistan and Pakistan center around household and community confidence and trust. If you get the basics of that right, you are 80 to 90 percent there. The challenge has always been reaching the other 10 to 20 percent.

The key issue is broader — the marginalization of communities. That’s not something that can be addressed just at the household and community level. It requires a systemic engagement to try to make sure that we properly understand the community’s actual needs and then that we connect those dots in a more reliable way.

The single most important relationship that the program has is between a frontline vaccinator and the caregiver who answers the knock at the door. That caregiver is usually the mother, and what’s really important for our success is that the frontline vaccinator is a local woman who is well-trained and motivated to do what she’s doing. If that relationship of confidence and trust is developed, then you’re able to vaccinate all of the children inside the house.

Because of the suspension of house-to-house vaccination campaigns in 2018 in areas of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban, more than 3 million children routinely miss vaccinations. Do you think that polio eradication is possible while the security situation in Afghanistan is so unpredictable?

We continue to speak with all parties. Our priority is the protection of children, and that requires engaging with all stakeholders. We have an agreement with the Taliban to conduct mosque-to-mosque campaigns, which we hope we’ll be able to initiate in the coming months. In some cases, we’ll be reaching children for the first time in several years. We’d like to build on those opportunities toward resuming house-to-house vaccination campaigns.

We don’t have an all-or-nothing situation. Let’s seize the opportunity to reach 40 to 50 percent coverage before we start talking about 100 percent. Will the campaigns in July and August be perfect? No. They’re taking place against the backdrop of a growing full-scale conflict, so we have to make sure that we find appropriate ways of making that work.

There will be risks. Eight frontline workers were killed in eastern Afghanistan earlier this year in various targeted killings. In these contested areas, the de facto authorities on the ground shift. We need to make sure that we navigate these areas as sensitively as we possibly can.

We are also working on financing essential immunization coverage [universal access to all relevant vaccines], particularly in the provinces of the southern region of Afghanistan. We recognize that it’s not just a polio gap. There’s a much broader gap.

The other point that I would highlight is the importance of the surveillance system. Although we have not been able to reach all children with vaccinations, our surveillance system is continuing to pick up all the acute flaccid paralysis cases. There is a basic system in place that allows us to properly understand what’s going on. We want to build incrementally and in a sustainable way to make sure that we have access in all of these areas for the purposes of our immunization programs.

What about in Pakistan, where 81 percent of the cases are among the Pashto-speaking population, who make up 15 percent of the overall population. Why are the cases so concentrated within that group, and what is the program planning to do to address it?

It’s often presented as a vaccine acceptance issue, but I think it’s much broader than that. Because of economic migration, among other reasons, you have this massive influx of Pashto-speaking people from across Afghanistan and Pakistan into Karachi. You’re seeing this huge explosion of settlements — formal, informal, and everything in between. These settlements tend to be highly underserved. There can be issues between the state and provincial administrations and these minority communities. There’s a wider issue around community acceptance, confidence, and trust.

The polio eradication program is one of the few programs that reaches these communities, but their needs go way beyond polio vaccines, including clean water and sanitation, nutrition, basic health services, and education. So when you are trying to access these informal settlements, you have this big residue of issues that polio essentially becomes the proxy for.

These issues are not strictly within the control of our program, but we recognize that to build the acceptance and trust of these communities, we’re going to have to make a much more sustained effort than we perhaps may have been doing in the past. The idea on our side is to move from patchy and ad hoc initiatives to something much more comprehensive and systemic.

Zero-dose refers to any child who has never had a vaccine. We want to make sure that they not only get the oral polio vaccines but also as many other essential immunizations as is feasible. It’s not just a question of a fixed, static target of high-risk children in core reservoirs — those areas with persistent wild poliovirus transmission. There is a rolling target that we have to stay on top of. We’re in a race against time with newborns. There are between 7 and 8 million babies born every year in Pakistan. So we need to make sure that within the first months of those babies’ lives, we’re reaching as large a proportion of them as we possibly can.

What’s your best guesstimate of your target?

Every time we do a national immunization campaign in Pakistan, which are house-to-house campaigns, we target more than 40 million children under age 5. When we go to Afghanistan, that number is between 9 million and 10 million. It continues to be very humbling to see what frontline workers are doing during a pandemic.

We’re dealing with two issues here, aren’t we — wild poliovirus and the circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus. What is the difference between the two?

The wild poliovirus is essentially as its name describes. It’s the original of the species. It has evolved over centuries and millennia, and it has continued to evolve.

The oral polio vaccine contains a live but weakened virus, which can circulate among under-immunized or unimmunized populations for a long period of time, usually for years. And eventually, it can revert to a form that causes paralysis. That is circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus [cVDPV].

Viruses require an immunity gap. They need susceptible children. Anywhere there are zero-dose children, you’re going to find these diseases taking off. When we map where these children are, we keep coming back to the same locations again and again. That’s why we really have to double down and make sure that these zero-dose children are our very top priority to get covered by vaccination.

Globally, how widespread is cVDPV?

There have been 1,800 cases since 2016. Between 2018 and 2019, there was a tripling of cases, and then there was a further tripling between 2019 and 2020. The total number of cVDPV cases in 2020 was 1,103. So far in 2021 [as of 27 July], there have been 179 cases. We’ve seen real progress as immunization campaigns have resumed. The number of countries with cases has decreased from 27 last year to just over a dozen.

These cases happen where children miss vaccinations. When children are fully vaccinated, cVDPV is not a problem. These cases are highly concentrated, with Afghanistan and Pakistan making up 40 percent of cases in 2020. If you look at the situation in Afghanistan, which was the country with the greatest number of cVDPV cases last year, more than 90 percent of those were concentrated in the areas that were inaccessible due to the Taliban banning house-to-house polio campaigns.

So again, the challenge for us is to protect through vaccination. You create a risk by not building up the immunity levels as high as they could or should be. As a program, we are trying to get back to a stage where we’re going after the root cause of the problem — which means making sure that we are fully vaccinating all of these zero-dose children.

Here’s how joining a Rotary club helped enhance Ashley Holmer’s work

Ashley Holmer is a member of the Rotary Club of Lewis River (Battle Ground), Washington

Looking for a meaningful year-abroad experience, Ashley Holmer decided to teach in Tanzania. The former college soccer star coached and taught English in a Maasai community in 2005.

But Holmer soon became more deeply involved in education in Tanzania. She co-founded the Indigenous Education Foundation of Tanzania (IEFT), which established a school in the village of Orkeeswa in 2008. In 2011, the leaders of Mungere village asked Holmer to help build its first community high school. That was the beginning of the Red Sweater Project, named for the color of the school uniforms. Since then, the Mungere School — and education — has been a central part of Holmer’s life.

The Red Sweater Project focuses on three main areas: quality education, gender equality, and responsible innovation. In Tanzania, many children — especially girls — leave school around age 12, in part because of costs for uniforms, school supplies, meals, and transportation. To keep students in the classroom, the project makes education affordable by reducing those ancillary costs.

In 2013, Holmer, who still spends about half her time in Tanzania, was invited to a meeting of the Lewis River Rotary club. She was struck by the way her values meshed with those of Rotary but was unable to join at the time because of attendance requirements. In January 2017, with those requirements having become more flexible, she became a member.

The club has embraced Holmer’s work and sponsors scholarships for six students each year to attend the Mungere School. “We have students whose parents are illiterate,” Holmer says. “One of my students just finished her teacher training. It’s coming full circle.”

— NIKKI KALLIO

• This story originally appeared in the March 2021 issue of Rotary magazine.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media contacts: Clinton Bennett, DHSS, 907-269-4996, clinton.bennett@alaska.gov
Public inquiries: State COVID-19 Vaccine Helpline, 907-646-3322

Administration of Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine paused for national safety review; mRNA vaccine administration will continue in Alaska and nationally

April 13, 2021 ANCHORAGE – Out of an abundance of caution, vaccine providers in Alaska have been asked to pause all use of the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine (Janssen) immediately, in accordance with a joint announcement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration this morning.

All upcoming appointments with the J&J vaccine are being canceled in Alaska. This is because CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is reviewing six cases of a rare and severe type of blood clot in women aged 18-48 years after vaccination with the J&J vaccine. Symptoms in these patients began 6-13 days following vaccination.

ACIP will meet tomorrow, April 14, to review the relevant data. Meanwhile, administration of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will continue both in Alaska and nationally. The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines are considered extremely safe and effective.

Anyone who was scheduled to receive the J&J vaccine in Alaska this week should be aware that their appointment will be canceled or postponed. If you need help rescheduling your appointment to instead receive one of the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer or Moderna), please call the Alaska Vaccine Helpline at 1-907-646-3322 or toll-free 1-833-4-VAXLINE (1-833-482-9546).

“We take every vaccine adverse event seriously. This pause is an important part of the process that ensures the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines,” said Dr. Joe McLaughlin, Alaska’s state epidemiologist. “This is how our safety checks work. DHSS is notifying vaccine providers via email and phone calls this morning and is also providing information to all health care providers. Alaskans should also know this appears to be a very rare event, with six cases out of 6.8 million doses of J&J vaccine administered to date.”

As of April 12, there have been 11,178 Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses administered in Alaska out of 35,500 doses allocated in the state. This vaccine has been delivered to a number of sites in Alaska, including pharmacies, outpatient clinics, federally qualified health centers and local public health authorities.

The six U.S. cases were flagged in the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), a component of national post-licensure vaccine safety monitoring. None of these six cases occurred in Alaska. Anyone who has received the vaccine who develops severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain, or shortness of breath within three weeks after vaccination should contact their health care provider or seek medical care.

Health care providers are asked to report adverse events to VAERS.

# # #

The Israel-based charity ‘Save A Child’s Heart’ reaches across conventional political boundaries for the welfare of children. Watford Rotarian, David Silverston, a trustee of Save A Child’s Heart UK, describes the amazing work which is taking place.

They will also be recognized at the 2021 Virtual Convention for their outstanding contribution to health.

Rohantha Athukorala

Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections, Sri Lanka

In April while Sri Lanka was on lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Rohantha used his time in isolation to rally other members across Sri Lanka and create Stop the Spread, a comprehensive effort to reduce new infections through behavior changes. The program brought the country's top athletes together with some 15,000 Rotarians, Rotactors, and Interactors to create awareness of health protocols and behavior change that can slow the spread of the disease. They also created a certification program for businesses that met new health and safety protocols addressing the spread of the virus. More than 300 businesses have been certified including schools, supermarkets, hotels, and tea and apparel industries. Read more about the project.

Julie Dockrill

Rotary Club of Timaru, New Zealand

In 2013, Dockrill and other midwives introduced a Maternal and Infant Health Education program in Mongolia that has been adopted by the Ministry of Health. They created a "train the trainer" curriculum and made numerous trips to the country to help educate healthcare workers, university students, and expectant mothers about safety practices and protocols of childbirth. Since the program was launched in Mongolia, the mortality rate among pregnant mother and newborns has decreased by 60%.

James Ham

Rotary Club of Honolulu Sunset, Hawaii, USA

The Homeless Outreach & Medical Education (H.O.M.E.) Project has provided free medical services through weekly clinics in nine sites across Oahu, Hawaii. Ham, an emergency physician in Honolulu and an assistant clinical professor at the University of Hawaii's school of medicine, began volunteering with the project four years ago. Ham's Rotary club purchased and stocks a mobile clinic that expands the project's reach. To address the COVID-19 pandemic, Ham organized 12 Rotary clubs to provide hot meals and masks and hygiene kits to a quarantine camp for homeless people, as well as PPE to the volunteers who offer frontline care.

Mohan Kumar

Rotary Club of Bangalore Prime, India

Since 2007, Kumar's Reach the Unreached organization, has led efforts to provide prosthetic hands to more than 20,000 people in mostly economically-challenged communities of Africa and South Asia. He credits volunteers with leading him to the people who most needed help: among them, a mother who can now hold her baby, a barber able to resume his profession, and a boy who lost both hands in an electrocution accident. According to Kumar, accidents often lead to amputation among the more than two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion inhabitants who live in low-income rural areas.

Isabel Scarinci

Rotary Club of Birmingham, Alabama, USA

Scarinci, a polio survivor, has been a strong advocate for polio eradication. She is now leading efforts to eliminate another disease: cervical cancer. Funded by a Rotary Foundation global grant, the Rotary clubs of Birmingham and Colombo (Sri Lanka) have joined with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health and the O'Neal Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, where Scarinci is a behavioral scientist, to vaccinate girls in Sri Lanka against the human papillomavirus and to screen women for the disease at ages 35 and 45.

Scarinci contracted polio as an infant in Brazil in 1963. She recovered, and together with her mother, has become a strong advocate for polio vaccination.

Teguest Yilma

Rotary Club of Addis Ababa Entoto, Ethiopia

On World Polio Day last October, Yilma, chair of Ethiopia's PolioPlus committee, collaborated with the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization to conduct a high-level panel discussion that addressed the problems COVID-19 created for ongoing polio eradication efforts. The media attention that event received helped people understand the importance of continuing National Immunization Days and spurred the government to continue providing polio and measles immunizations throughout the pandemic.

Rotarians, Rotaractors, and Interactors worked together in a nationwide project that promoted behavior change and initiated safety standards for businesses

by Ryan Hyland

Rohantha Athukorala felt helpless. It was April 2020 when Sri Lanka was on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, and he wanted to do something immediately to help the country slow the spread of virus.

“The lockdown was so sudden and absolute. It was hard not being in control of what you can and can’t do,” says Athukorala, a member of the Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections, Sri Lanka. “Especially for us Rotarians who pride ourselves on helping our communities in desperate times.”

But sheltering in place had its advantages, he says, providing the time and opportunity to connect with fellow members online. Their discussions sparked ideas about what they could do to help people understand how to stay safe from the coronavirus.

Promoting safety though social media

Athukorala started by contacting club and district leaders, talking with government officials, and listening to business leaders. In late April, he launched Stop the Spread, a comprehensive effort to reduce new infections through behavior changes.

He asked the more than 5,000 Sri Lankan Interactors to lead the campaign and be community advocates for specific behaviors such as wearing masks, washing hands, and social distancing. Interactors used their social media networks to blast daily messages about staying safe from the virus, and posted relevant communications from the Ministry of Health.

To complement the Interactors’ communication, Athukorala worked with the country’s Ministry of Sports and the National Olympic Committee to get top athletes to become ambassadors for Stop the Spread. More than 280 athletes — including stars in cricket and rugby, as well as Olympians — participated in videos and graphics that were posted on social media.

Stop the Spread also promoted safety protocols through a certification process for businesses. Athukorala and fellow Rotary members created the certification with the Sri Lanka Standards Institution that enabled companies that are compliant with certain safety guidelines to be certified as a COVID-19-controlled environment. Protocols such as mandatory mask wearing, temperature checks, and social distancing had to be in place in order to receive the certification. Nearly 300 businesses, educational institutions, supermarkets, and other retailers have passed the program’s rigorous audits and received certification, allowing customers and students feel safe while supporting these businesses.

When the lockdown order was lifted in early May, Interactors fanned out across their communities to visit businesses, homes, and public transport to give people educational materials and safety guidance. They became leaders in helping schools implement COVID-19 safety protocols, which allowed schools to open in early July.

“Our Interactors have been fantastic and made a real difference in getting crucial information out to the public,” Athukorala says, who was chair of the Sri Lanka Tourism Bureau and served as the chief business development officer for Sri Lanka at the United Nations.  

Tools and technology

To encourage hand washing, local Rotary clubs worked with S-lon, a plastic water pipe company, and PickMe, a transportation organization, to build nearly 2,000 mobile hand washing units that attach to three-wheel bikes. Riders are encouraged to wash their hands before and after using the bikes. The aim is to promote hand washing hygiene in public spaces and increase hand washing rates, which is one of the best protections against COVID-19 infection.

The Rotaract Club of Kelaniya created a mobile app, Track the Spread, that allows Sri Lankans to log symptoms and register positive tests. The app is integrated with local hospitals and health centers so medical professionals can identify hotspots and communicate with people about their symptoms. It also allows people to purchase goods online from grocery stores, pharmacies, retail shops, and even pay utilities with the app, while allowing people to stay home and thus contain the spread. “This is helping commerce continue,” Athukorala says.

The government of Sri Lanka is now testing the app for widespread adoption across its health departments.

The next phase

As vaccinations are increasing in the country, more than 800,000 doses have been administered so far, Rotary clubs have also worked with local health officials to support vaccine sites including logging data. 

Clubs worked with the World Health Organization and Ministry of Health to develop a booklet for parliament representatives and religious and community leaders to facilitate a successful vaccination program. The printable booklet has information on different vaccines, safe practices, and key messages that leaders can use to better inform people about the COVID-19 vaccines.

More than 88,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed as of mid-March, with over 530 deaths.

“We have done a great job at keeping COVID-19 at bay, but our next focus is making sure Sri Lanka can adequately provide vaccinations to its people,” Athukorala says.

22-Mar-2021

How to Protect Yourself and Others

Until we know more about those questions, everyone — even people who’ve had their vaccines — should continue taking basic prevention steps when recommended.

Want to learn more about these recommendations? Read our expanded Interim Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People, and corresponding Science Brief, and recommendations for healthcare providers.

March 9, 2021 (Juneau, AK) – Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy today announced effective immediately the COVID-19 vaccine is available for all individuals who live or work in Alaska and are age 16 and older, making Alaska the first state in the nation to remove eligibility requirements.

“This historic step is yet another nationwide first for Alaska, but it should come as no surprise. Since day one, your response to the pandemic has been hands-down the best in the nation,” said Governor Mike Dunleavy. “I couldn’t be prouder of Alaska’s response. From being the first state to offer widespread testing, to maintaining one of the lowest mortality rates in the country, to rolling out vaccinations to every willing Alaskan, we got here by working together.”

“It is a great day for Alaskans wanting to receive the COVID-19 vaccine,” said Adam Crum, Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. “I want to thank Governor Dunleavy for this opportunity and if Alaskans had any questions about vaccine eligibility and criteria, I hope today’s announcement clears it up for you, simply put, you are eligible to get the vaccine.”

The Pfizer vaccine is available to individuals who are 16 and older, while the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the Moderna vaccine are available to individuals who are 18 and older. All three authorized vaccines have shown to be very effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death caused by COVID-19.

Regions including Kodiak Island, the Petersburg Borough, and the Kusilvak Census Area are nearing or exceeding 90% vaccination rates among seniors. In the Nome Census Area, over 60% of residents age 16 and over have received at least one shot, and roughly 291,000 doses have been administered statewide.

“A healthy community means a healthy economy. With widespread vaccinations available to all Alaskans who live or work here, we will no doubt see our economy grow and our businesses thrive,” said Governor Dunleavy.

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Randall Butler is the chair of the peacebuilding committee of a club with more than a century of dedication to fostering peace

by Geoffrey Johnson

“I’ve been in conflict resolution my whole career,” says Randy Butler, the founder and CEO of the Institute for Sustainable Peace. A former trial lawyer, Butler abandoned the courtroom to focus on using mediation to resolve disputes and training others in the use of mediation. “I’d found my passion,” he says.

In 2018, he led a workshop to “build the skills necessary to overcome the polarization we are experiencing in the United States.” When Butler reached out to the peacebuilding committee at the Rotary Club of Boulder, he met Gary Kahn, who asked him: “Why are you not a member of Rotary?”

Attending a meeting of the Boulder club, he says, “it was amazing to look at all these people around the room — the district attorney; medical professionals and successful businesspeople; college professors — and realize that here was a club that had brought all these individuals together and that they make a real difference in what they’re doing.” 

It was Butler’s Rotary epiphany. “I suddenly saw this network forming all over the world: people who knew how to get things done and knew people they could get things done with.”

Today he’s the chair of the peacebuilding committee of the 101-year-old club, which has dedicated its second century to fostering peace. “We remind our club members that all of our projects that help to build Positive Peace involve collaborations at the community level, even across traditional divides,” he says, noting that they look forward to using the vast Rotary network to build even more “bridges of understanding.”

• This story originally appeared in the February 2021 issue of Rotary magazine.

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