Give every Child a Future.
Rotary: Give Every Child A Future
The Rotary: Give Every Child A Future (RGECAF) project is the only Rotary100downunder project covering all of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
Over the next three years, the project aims to vaccinate 100,000 children in nine Pacific Island countries against three diseases:
• Rotavirus, a leading cause of death from diarrhoea in under-five-year-olds;
• Pneumococcal disease, a major cause of meningitis, pneumonia and blood poisoning in young children; and
• Human papillomavirus, the cause of cervical cancer, which kills disproportionate numbers of women in the Pacific compared to Australia and New Zealand.
To do this, Rotary has partnered with UNICEF across the three regions. UNICEF and Rotary have a long history of partnership, most notably through the global polio eradication initiative. Rotary’s primary role in RGECAF is to raise funds and awareness for the project, while UNICEF is responsible for delivering the vaccines.
While the project planning is led by UNICEF and the four founding clubs of Rotary Australasia – Melbourne, Vic, Sydney, NSW, Auckland, NZ, and Wellington, NZ – it cannot succeed without support from clubs across the entire region. RGECAF gives every Rotary club the opportunity to really make a difference in our own backyard; to save the lives of children and mothers in the South West Pacific. Applications for global grants made by the project mean that money raised will be matched to further increase the effectiveness of fundraising.
Work is underway to provide Rotarians the opportunity to participate in the community engagement phase of the project. Interested Rotarians, and those wanting to learn more, are invited to visit www.everychildafuture.com
With governments committing to fund the vaccine programs on completion of the project, Rotary: Give Every Child A Future will continue saving lives across the Pacific for generations.
In addition, the project will provide every club the opportunity to demonstrate to their communities the power of Rotary in 2021: how, when like-minded and determined people come together, they can achieve amazing things. Please encourage your Rotary, Rotaract or Interact club to share in the RGECAF journey.
A toolkit of resources is available to Rotarians for their fundraising events at
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