Below is the announcement of an upcoming Rotary trip to Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa in November 2015 to participate in a polio immunization exercise, attend the 10th Annual West Africa Project Fair, and engage in a hands-on work project. Cote d’Ivoire (we formerly called Ivory Coast) is near Nigeria when we are in a critical close-out phase of polio eradication.
There have been no new wild poliovirus type 1 cases reported since July 2014. To be certified as polio-free, there must be no new cases within at least 3 years so we are incredibly close to declaring Nigeria and the entire African continent polio-free. You may recall that in 2004 there was a major problem with a halt in polio eradication in northern Nigeria but things have total reversed to the positive during the past 10 years. It is now very important that all other countries in Africa maintain their full effort at immunization and monitoring. Only Pakistan and Afghanistan remain with new cases of wild polio virus. In the past year, the number of immunizations administered has increased and number of reported cases declined substantially because of support from governmental authorities. Rotary, the Gates Foundation and WHO are providing resources for all of these eradication efforts where it’s dangerous work and critical to have support from national and local authorities. Conditions in Cote d’Ivoire are much safer and we are close to celebrating the African continent as polio-free.
If you are interested in the Rotary trip to Cote d’Ivoire, you should contact Bradford Howard, Rotary International Director, at travel@howardtours.net. Here is the announcement:
“The purpose of this correspondence is to announce an upcoming trip to Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa in November 2015 to participate in a polio immunization exercise, attend the 10th Annual West Africa Project Fair, and engage in a hands-on work project. Attached is detailed trip information. Please feel free to share this information with the Rotarians in your club as soon as possible as we have a limited amount of space and expect this trip to be filled in the next week or two.
Trip Dates: November 10 – 19, 2015
Travel to: Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, West Africa
Per Person Price: $1,779, double occupancy
Price includes: Hotel accommodations, transfers, most meals, polio immunization exercise, hands-on community service field work, West Africa Project Fair registration, special Rotary and fellowship events, sightseeing, etc.
In November 2015, North American Rotarians will travel to Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, for a life changing experience. Have you ever heard a Rotarian speak about their personal experience participating in a polio eradication exercise, a cleft lip/cleft palate mission, or work on a humanitarian grant? These trips have a profound effect upon the individual. For those of you who have gone on one of these trips you know, and for those of you who have yet to enjoy this experience, you should.
The experiences you have stay with you forever. You get up early in the morning, travel with local Rotarians to a village, health clinic or impoverished neighborhood, and for the next few hours, you change. Small children come up to you to say thank you. Mothers and fathers smile at you knowing that you are giving their child a chance for a better life. You meet with the leaders in the village to learn of their needs and their hopes. It is hot; it is dusty; it makes you uncomfortable; it is exquisite.
The West Africa Project Fair is endorsed by Rotary’s Reach Out to Africa Committee (ROTA), who is trying to generate greater connectivity between the African and North American Rotarians to generate greater support of the projects of Africa. Your involvement, or your club’s involvement, in this Fair would not only provide an opportunity for project support, it would also help your members to grow and to understand the benefits of being a Rotarian. Involvement in Rotary gives the ordinary Rotarian extraordinary opportunities to do things that they could never do anywhere else. This trip is just such an experience.
Encourage your members to participate – help them to Be a Gift to the World.”
|