Telefonica have erected a telecommunications mast (pictured above) on the grass verge by the Church Lane/Sunninghill High Street roundabout on the A329. Sadly, the installation work has involved ploughing up the area planted by Charters 6th Formers in the Autumn with 5,000 crocus bulbs, to publicise the Rotary 'End Polio' Campaign. SEE ARTICLE on the crocus planting.
Pictured Above: Charters Students Planting 5,000 Croci in November 2017 .
Pictured Above: Telefonica Site Notice
Rotary Clubs Worldwide - including the Rotary Club of Ascot - have been raising money with the aim of ending Polio in each and every country of the world. Rotary has been involved with the End Polio Now Campaign for more than 10 years, and has raised in excess of US$ 2 Billion! When the campaign began, the disease was endemic with more than 80 countries and several hundred thousand new cases each year being affected. Today, Polio is confined to two or three countries and there have been less than 10 new cases reported so far in 2017. We are nearly there! In order for the World Health Organisation to declare the world Polio free, there must have been no new Polio cases diagnosed for a period of 3 years.
Rotary Clubs all over the world have been active, not only to collect monies, but also to make the public aware of the campaign and the disease. Rotary Clubs all over the country have purchased 5,000 Crocus Corms each from the RHS, all with purple colour, and are planting them in conspicuous places. Once they bloom in Spring, we will make the public aware why we are doing this when the area turns purple.
Pictured Above: Ascot High Street Rotary Croci in February 2017
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Polio was rife throughout most of the world until just over 30 years ago. In 1985, Rotary launched its PolioPlus program, the first initiative to tackle global polio. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, formed in 1988, is a public-private partnership that includes Rotary, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and governments of the world
Since then, the Rotary movement has worked tirelessly to achieve eradication of polio, so that more than 160 countries have been cleared of the disease, and it now exists only in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and to a limited extent in Nigeria. India’s last case was over 2 years ago, and the country will be declared free if there is no outbreak in the remainder of this year.
Although the immunization costs are very small, the scale of the task has cost over £1.5 billion, and the expenditure will need to continue until at least 2021. Latterly the monies raised by Rotary have been trebled by the Bill Gates Foundation, and Rotary is now improving the public’s awareness of the programme by its ‘Purple for Polio’ publicity. Currently this is demonstrated by over 1 million crocus bulbs having been planted last autumn around the country, and including here in Ascot, as in the picture. By the generous assistance of the Racecourse, 5,000 bulbs were planted in a rectangle on the very south-east corner of the grass area of Car Park 6, close to the junction of the High Street and Winkfield Road and produced a fine display in Spring 2017.
- Notes on Rotary:
- Rotary in the Thames Valley and Surrounding areas comprises some 1900 Rotarians in 60 Clubs stretching from Banbury in the north to Hungerford in the West, then eastwards to the outer suburbs of West London.
- The Rotary Club of Ascot comprises more than 40 business and professional men and women who live or work in the Ascot area. The Club meets each week at Mill Ride Golf Club, and in a typical year raises in the order of £25,000 for local, national and international humanitarian works. See www.rotaryascot.org.
- About Rotary
- Rotary International in Great Britain and Ireland (Rotary GBI), part of Rotary International, has 1,800 clubs and some 50,000 members.
- Rotary International was founded in 1905 in Chicago and is one of the world’s largest international service organisations with 1.2 million professional men and women as members. There are 34,000 clubs in 200 countries and geographical areas.
- Rotary clubs are open to men and women who are business, professional or community leaders who want to use their experience for the benefit of others.
- Rotary initiates local and global projects to promote world understanding and peace and improve life conditions for people of all ages and cultures. To find out more, visit www.ribi.org.
The fight to eradicate Polio is getting ever closer. As of 14th June there have only been 6 reported cases in 2017. This compares with 14 cases at the same time last year. The cases have been 2 in Pakistan (11 at a similar stage last year) and 4 in Afghanistan (6 last year). There have been no cases reported in Nigeria, where there were 4 cases in August last year. Vaccination programmes continue apace, with National Immunisation Days taking place throughout
Pakistan in May and the Afghanistan Ministry of Health combining with UNICEF and the World Health Organisation
have undertaken a massive Spring Immunisation programme. We can rightfully say that “we are almost there”, but we must continue to support this programme until the job is really finished.