Purple 4 Polio at the School

For over 30 years, Rotary and its members have been committed to fighting to eradicate polio across the world. The Purple4Polio initiative was launched by Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland to raise funds and awareness for our efforts to eradicate polio and promote the work of our global campaign, ‘End Polio Now’.
When a child receives their life saving polio drops on mass polio immunisation days, in many countries their little finger is painted with a purple dye so it is clear that they have received their life saving vaccine.

Thanks to Rotary, and the support of our partners WHO, Unicef, CDC and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, there are now just three countries still classed as endemic: Pakistan, Nigeria and Afghanistan. To finish the job over 2 billion doses of oral polio vaccine have to be administered each and every year in over 60 countries until the world is finally certified polio free.

In the last Issue of ECN we showed you photos of the children of Eastington School receiving purple crocus bulbs from Rotary members, and planting them on the little island by the Church. Happily, these have now all come up and bloomed (in purple!) And have made a splendid show.

Rotary member Bryan Webstar visited the school in February and took this lovely photo of the Headmistress Zoe Avastu with some of the little ‘planters’. He said that he quizzed them on whether they remembered why they planted the crocuses. Not only did the children remember what Dr. Charles Buckly had told them, but also remembered finding the fossilized tooth and the abundance of worms they had found as they dug. The worms, no doubt, contributing to the quality of the flowers!