ROTARY'S VISION STATEMENT:

Together, we see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change

- across the globe, in our communities, and in ourselves

Fighting Disease

Growing Local Economies

Promoting Peace

Providing Clean Water

Saving Mothers and Children

Supporting Education

GOOD NEWS FROM THE END POLIO DAY, 2020

Rotary members achieve a record-breaking World Polio Day

Rotary members raised awareness about polio eradication and showed their support more than ever on World Polio Day. Participation in activities and events and donations to PolioPlus both increased this year.

Clubs registered more than 7,600 virtual activities and events in 146 countries, surpassing last year’s 5,900 events. We had a variety of awareness promotions and online presentations as part of our registered events, with many virtual events that featured high-profile speakers and attracted large audiences. Donors contributed more than $920,000 online - totaling more than $2.7 million with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2-to-1 match - which is the most ever raised online for World Polio Day.

A new social media campaign inspired members and supporters to share their best End Polio Now photos using the hashtag #MyEndPolio. So far, more than 1,000 photos have been uploaded and shared. Rotary’s World Polio Day Online Global Update has been watched nearly 300,000 times and downloaded by thousands of clubs to communicate the critical need to end polio for good. Learn more about polio eradication achievements and the challenges ahead to protect all children from polio.

Extract from the End Polio Now Newsletter, December 2020

BOC AWARD FOR ROAD SAFETY AWARENESS

Supporting Excellence in Road Safety - BOC Champion Award

District Governor David Clark was privileged on Thursday the 12th of November to attend the BOC head Office in North Ryde to receive a plaque in recognition of District 9685 being involved in the RYDA (Rotary Youth Driver Awareness) program now called Road Safety Education from its conception in 2000 The lovely glass plaque was handed over by the CEO from BOC as they have been a major sponsor from the start. These awards are given in Road Safety Week usually to individuals who do extraordinary things to promote Road Safety, but when it came to Road Safety Education they thought it best to give it to the whole District as RYDA was first started here in District the then 9680, and hundreds of Rotarians all over the District contribute to the program year after year some in a big way and some just going along to the day's event to help marshal the kids.

Whatever you have done to promote and help in the RYDA program be such a success this is for you.

Congratulations on 20 years of helping to save kid's lives through Driver education.


District Governor David Clark	David Terry and District Governor David Clark

Click on the picture below to view the presentation ceremony

Vincent Saved by Rotary and Special Doctors

ABC News, Monday 26^th October, 2020

Reproduced from ABC News - A story by Tahlia Roy (Posted 4 hours ago, updated 1hour ago as at 10.30 am, 26.10.20)

Donated surgeries in Canberra save Solomon Islands baby born with detached oesophagus

Solomon Islands boy Vincent Toto now

has a chance to have a healthy life

Not yet two years old, Vincent Toto's life was set to end before it really began. But a mother's love, goodwill from 3,000 kilometres away and an unforgettable year in a foreign country have saved the Solomon Islands boy from certain death. "If he was left in Honiara, he would have been dead in a few days to maybe a month," paediatric surgeon Celine Hamid explains. "Because these kids are born without the food pipe, which is the oesophagus, they drown in their own saliva. They aspirate. They get lung problems."

Charity Group (ROMAC) Saving Dozens of Pacific Islanders

Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC) has saved dozens of Pacific Islanders by bringing sick babies and children to Canberra for critical care, which is donated by the hospital under a memorandum of understanding.

Vincent underwent three significant surgeries, dozens of gastroscopies and ended up in the neonatal intensive care unit on a few occasions.

After 16 months of treatment in Canberra, he has become well enough to eat — with an appetite that draws him to the backyard veggie garden to munch on snow peas.

TIME's 100 MOST INFLENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD

Dr TUNJI FUNSHO

Afolabi Sotunde—Reuters

BY JEFFREY KLUGER

SEPTEMBER 22, 2020 9:34 PM EDT

It’s not often an entire continent eradicates a disease, but on Aug. 25, 2020, that happened when Nigeria was declared polio-free, clearing the virus from its last redoubt in all of Africa. The person who did more than any other to drive polio to continent-wide extinction was Dr. Tunji Funsho, a former cardiologist and now the chair of Rotary International’s polio-eradication program in Nigeria.

Funsho could have retired years ago, but in 2013, with polio still paralyzing children across Nigeria, he decided to step up to lead the Rotarians’ effort. Together with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the WHO, the CDC and UNICEF, Funsho and Rotary helped lead National Immunization Days, getting millions of doses of the polio vaccine to children in cities and villages around the nation. They also sponsored health-education initiatives at community centers, mosques and even birthday parties. This summer, the country marked four years without a case of wild polio, qualifying it for its polio-free certification, leaving Afghanistan and Pakistan as the only places in the world in which polio remains endemic.

“Certification will be an achievement,” Funsho told TIME in 2018. “But we’re not in a hurry for that. We’re in a hurry to make sure no child is paralyzed.” In Nigeria and in Africa as a whole, that moment has arrived.

Kluger is a TIME editor at large

ANNOUNCEMENT IN PARLIAMENT - ROTARY SERVES THE WORLD

The Hon. Trent Zimmerman MP (and Rotarian) announcing the eradication of Polio in Africa in Parliament House and praising our local Rotary Clubs.

You can watch his address here .....

THE BOSIN TWINS AND ROMAC

Although they were born over 24 years ago, it was the Bosin Twins that laid the foundation for ROMAC as we know it today.

Eaustina and Eaustocia were conjoined twins born on a small island near Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, which at the time was war-torn. Half way through her labour, and the first baby’s head showing, mum Magdalene was transported to a larger island over 400 metres of water by boat, where two little girls, conjoined at the chest were born. A power failure half way through the caesarean operation meant the operation was completed under the light of a full moon. The next day they were flown to Port Moresby, from where ROMAC arranged for them to go to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital, where they were successfully separated.

They are now 24 years old and have just graduated from University. A wonderful testament to the work of the Rotary Oceania Medical Aid for Children (ROMAC) team, and the impact of Rotary in the world.