Our ability to do Global and District Grant projects, such as the provision of clean water, improving the environment, for mental health, in 2025-26 depends on the contributions we make this year!

Article by PDG Peter Garnett, Regional Rotary Foundation Coordinator

Funding for Rotary’s No 1 project eradicating polio and for our projects 'Doing Good in the World' is reliant on contributions to the Rotary Foundation from our Rotary Clubs and us as individual Rotarians. To date, our Region’s giving to the Rotary Foundation Annual Fund and Polio Fund is significantly behind our giving in past years.

ANNUAL FUND

Those attending the RI Convention in Melbourne will have heard President Jennifer Jones talking about the impact on her personally from her experiences visiting Rotary Projects around the world – including her visit to Kiribati to view our Give Every Child a Future Centennial (GECAF) project. We listened to President Elect Gordon McInally’s closing address where he talked about his vision for mental health projects, show casing the D9910 Te Tai Tokarau Mental wellbeing Global Grant project for the children in Northland, New Zealand. These and the many other important projects would not have been possible without our past contributions to the Annual Fund.  

POLIO PLUS

Those of us attending the RI Convention in Melbourne were also inspired by the presentations on End Polio Now by Past RI President and current Trustee Chair Ian Riseley and the Pakistan End Polio Chair. It was sobering and quite emotional to hear the stories about the work volunteers are doing to vaccinate the children in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the risks they take daily and the number who have lost their lives while doing this work. At the same time it was wonderful to hear there have only been 4 new cases of wild polio to date this year and the World Health Organisation’s prediction that we could see the last cases of wild polio this year. The overriding message was that we need to continue to fund the End Polio programme for another 3 years after the last case of polio to ensure we do meet our promise to the children of the world, to rid the world of this polio virus for ever.

THANK YOU

At the time of writing (7 June 2023) 864 of our 1254 clubs (69%) have contributed to the Annual Fund this year and 636 clubs (51%) to the Polio Fund. THANK YOU.

A big THANK YOU to each of the Rotarians who have made individual contributions.

ACTION

The good news is, if your club or you individually, haven’t contributed to the Annual Fund or to the Polio Fund this year, there is still time to do so.

Please take action to contribute (within your own or your club’s ability) in the next week.