Rani Adeang, 14, receives her first dose of the HPV vaccine during the vaccination launch in Nauru. Photo courtesy of Grace Snooky Namaduk
Just over a hundred years ago, JWD was instrumental in founding the first Rotary Clubs in Australia and New Zealand: Melbourne, Sydney, Wellington and Auckland. To celebrate the 2021 centenary, these clubs jointly resolved to mark the event with an international project that would be bigger than any of us could contemplate on our own. Having resolved to focus on health in the Pacific region, we consulted with UNICEF, as Rotary’s tried and true partner in the Polio eradication programme. Their advice resulted in a major initiative called Rotary Give Every Child A Future, estimated to cost $US4.5 million over three years. With the foundation JWD clubs taking a lead, the programme has now achieved outstanding donations from Clubs and Districts across Australasia and more widely – even including JWD’s own home club in Canada – in their turn attracting Rotary Foundation funding.
We are on the homeward run, as we fundraise to Reach Every Last Child during 2022.
What is the programme? Rotary Give Every Child A Future is designed to vaccinate 100,000 Pacific babies and children in nine Pacific Island countries against three life-threatening diseases: rotavirus and pneumococcal disease, which cause the deaths or stunting of many young children worldwide, and human papillomavirus, the source of cervical cancer, one of very few preventable cancers.
It is delivered in collaboration with each Pacific country’s health authorities and includes training for public health professionals, supply of cold chain equipment, purchase of vaccines and technical support to strengthen health systems, creating sustainability to benefit future generations of children. Rotary is fully funding the programme in five Pacific countries (Cook Islands, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue and Tokelau) and funding regional and other supporting activities in four others (Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa and Tuvalu) where the Asian Development Bank covers the introduction of the vaccines.
After three years of unremitting fundraising efforts and despite the constraints and delays caused by Covid-19, implementation is now well under way. Training has taken place and equipment delivered onsite. An unexpected but very welcome consequence of our programme has been that it has also prepared health staff better to deliver Covid-19 protection.
We have just marked a major milestone with the commencement of vaccinations in Nauru. UNICEF reported there was a heart-warming level of community support for the launch event held by the Ministry of Health.
Over 2022, we need to fund the final year of the project in the Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau, and the rotavirus programme in Kiribati. This will require approximately US$200,000. Then over the following couple of years, we plan to fund an extension of the original programme for HPV vaccinations in Kiribati, estimated at a further US$600-700,000. We believe this continues to be a great way to celebrate the Centenary of Rotary in our part of the world and to demonstrate the difference that Rotary can make.
We welcome support from other clubs in the JWD network. For more information for your club members and to donate please go to www.everychildafuture.com. You can download short videos from the site, including the most recent, which features Dr Frances Vulivuli (UNICEF’s Suva-based Pacific Health and Nutrition Specialist).
