At the Baker Oration last week (wednesday 13 May 26), Rob McGuirk, the Chair of the National Rotary EndTrachoma project outlined how the Baker Foundation enabled Rotary Australia to contribute to a landmark national health achievement: the elimination of trachoma as a public health problem in Australia.
Speaking ahead of a presentation by Professor John Greenwood of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute, Rob described the origins and impact of Rotary’s decade-long EndTrachoma campaign. The speech highlighted the critical role played by the Baker Foundation in helping transform an ambitious idea into one of Rotary Australia’s most significant Indigenous health initiatives.
The story began in 2016, when Rotary Melbourne was looking for a national project to mark its centenary year in Australia. In discussions with Professor Hugh Taylor from the Melbourne University Indigenous Eye Health Unit Rob learned that Australia was the only developed nation in the world where trachoma, a preventable blinding eye disease, remained endemic among Indigenous communities.
Recognising both the urgency and symbolic importance of the issue, he decided that eliminating trachoma could become the major national centenary project. However, achieving such a goal required more than goodwill. A successful application to the Baker Foundation secured funding of $87,500 annually over three years, enabling Rotary to appoint professional project management and ensure that future fundraising could be directed almost entirely toward frontline services and supplies.
That support proved transformational. Backed initially also by the Rotary Club of Melbourne and the Rotary Club of Hall in Canberra, the EndTrachoma project expanded nationally and continued well beyond the World Health Organization’s original 2020 target after the WHO extended its global elimination timeline to 2030.
Over the past decade, the project has raised more than $1.2 million and delivered practical health and hygiene support to remote central Australian communities most affected by trachoma. The initiative has supplied more than 15,000 hygiene kits, 21,000 towels and 8,000 mirrors, while also funding community laundries, water stations, washer-dryer trailers. In addition, Rotary Melbourne has funded three interactive water trailers for children.
Beyond the physical infrastructure, the program also strengthened Rotary’s national profile through partnerships with more than 40 Indigenous, government and non-government organisations, including the Australian Trachoma Alliance chaired by former Governor General Michael Jeffery (dec). Rotary Champions across districts nationwide helped build awareness and mobilise support and funds from clubs throughout Australia.
The culmination of those efforts came on 29 April 2026, when the World Health Organization formally announced that Australia had eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, a milestone celebrated as both a public health victory and a significant step forward in improving the environmental health of Indigenous Australians.
Rob emphasised that while the announcement marked an historic achievement, the work is far from complete. Continued investment in environmental health, hygiene infrastructure and Indigenous community wellbeing remains essential to prevent the disease from returning and to address other preventable health conditions affecting remote communities.
In closing, Rob expressed his gratitude to the Baker Foundation, on behalf of the project directors, Kerry Kornhauser OAM and Past District Governor Murray Verso, project managers Lien Trinh and Sandi Fulcher, the Rotary District Champions and the many other Rotarians whose persistence over ten years helped achieve what once seemed an ambitious dream.
