Weekly Meeting of Rotary E-Club of the Caribbean, 7020: June 2016

WELCOME TO THE WEEKLY MEETING

FRIDAY, July 1, 2016

In this meeting:

Welcome
President’s message
Rotary Minute
Rotary Calendar
ABCs of Rotary
Update on Polio
Literacy Story
A short year-end video message from RI President’s representative
Video Days for Girls
Humour
What happened Wednesday
Notice re NID in India in 2016
Foundation Corner (has not changed from last year)
Rotary Anthem
Four-way test to end

NOTE: Where links are provided in the meeting, click the link to view the video. To return to the meeting, click either your browser's BACK button or click the previous window or TAB.

OUR GREETER THIS WEEK IS JEROME COWANS

New President's Message

President Paul Amoury

Greetings fellow Rotarians and Guests, and welcome to the most excellent Rotary e-Club of the Caribbean, 7020.

This is our first official meeting for the year 2016-2017, and we hope to entertain you as well and making you feel at home.

Our club is now in our 4^th year and we are looking forward to it with great excitement.

Our signature project, The Butterfly Storybook, will actually be in its 5^th year, as we began the project before even chartering, and we look forward to this year’s issue with great anticipation.

We are hoping to have the first book printed in braille this year, which will be an awesome endeavor and open our horizons as well as those in our community.

This year we also hope to involve ourselves in some youth projects, and inspire the youth around us to become better citizens through service.

In the meantime, please note that we have our live meeting on Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. Atlantic time, and we also have our Happy Hour Hangout on Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. Atlantic time, so please join us at either meeting; we love having guests.

This week in our posted meeting we have lots to see. We have a Rotary Minute; just a little note of something interesting about Rotary you may or may not already know.

We have an update on Polio Plus, a little ABC’s of Rotary, and a Literacy Story. We also have a video of Days for Girls which I am certain you will enjoy. And as always we end our meeting with the Four Way test.

So sit back and enjoy our meeting, and come back soon.

Remember to send us an email so you can let us know you were here, and let us know if you want a make-up. Also, let us know if you want us to add you as a friend, and we will gladly add you to our mail group.

THE ROTARY CALENDAR

JULY

New Rotary officers’ year of service

AUGUST

Membership and New Club Development

SEPTEMBER

Basic Education and Literacy

OCTOBER

Economic and Community Development

NOVEMBER

The Rotary Foundation

DECEMBER

Disease Prevention and Treatment

JANUARY

Vocational Service

FEBRUARY

Peace and Conflict Prevention/Resolution

MARCH

Water and Sanitation

APRIL

Maternal and Child Health Month

MAY

Youth Services Month

JUNE

Rotary Fellowships Month

ROTARY MINUTE

QUOTATIONS REGARDING ROTARY

by Rotary International Presidents

1975-76 Ernesto Imbassahy de Mello (law), Rotary Club of Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rotary vision: That its program, in all aspects, seeks to Dignify the Human Being.

“To dignify the human being in all aspects — respecting his rights, the achievements of his work, of his culture, intelligence, and spiritual values — is a certain path to goodwill and to the desired understanding among men, peoples, and nations: peace.”

— To Dignify the Human Being, THE ROTARIAN, July 1975

1976-77 Robert A. Manchester II (utility law), Rotary Club of Youngstown, Ohio, USA. Rotary vision: That fellow Rotarians around the world sincerely believe in the Rotary ideal.

“Whether or not the ethical climate in business is higher or lower today, each of us has an opportunity to speak up for higher standards. And for each person willing to voice his convictions, there are others who are willing to follow and be influenced by that kind of leadership.”

— Business Ethics Today — A Call to Leadership, THE ROTARIAN, November 1976

ABCs OF ROTARY

RI President (1992-93) Cliff Dochterman

RI's General Secretary

The day-to-day operations of Rotary International's Secretariat are under the supervision of the general secretary, the top professional officer of Rotary. Although the general secretary is responsible to the RI Board of Directors and president, he provides the ongoing management for nearly 500 staff members who compose the Secretariat of Rotary International.

The general secretary serves as secretary to the RI board and is also the chief executive and financial officer of The Rotary Foundation, under the supervision of the trustees of the Foundation. He is the secretary of all Rotary committees as well as the Council on Legislation, regional conferences and the annual Rotary convention.

The general secretary is appointed by the RI board for a term of not more than five years and is usually reelected.

Since 1910, nine men have served in that position. Chesley Perry, the original general secretary, served from 1910 to 1942. Others who followed were Phil Lovejoy (1942-52), George Means (1953-72), Harry Stewart (1972-78), Herb Pigman (1979-86), Philip Lindsey (1986-90), Spencer Robinson, Jr. (1990-93) and Geoffrey Large (1995-97). Herb Pigman was re-elected to the position in 1993. S. Aaron Hyatt was appointed in 1997. Aaron Hyatt (1997-2000), Ed Futa (2000-2011), and John Hewko (2011 - present).

Throughout the history of Rotary, the personal influence and administrative skills of our general secretaries have significantly shaped the course of Rotary programs and activities.

Selecting a President

Each year a distinguished Rotarian is selected as the worldwide president of Rotary International. The process begins two years in advance when a 15-person nominating committee is elected from separate regions of the world. To qualify for the nominating committee, a Rotarian must have served on the RI Board of Directors and have extensive Rotary experience and substantial acquaintanceship with the world leaders of Rotary.

The nominating committee may consider all former RI directors for the presidential candidate. Members of the nominating committee and current directors are not eligible. Any Rotary club may suggest the name of a former RI director to the committee for consideration.

The committee convenes in September to select the Rotarian to be the presidential nominee. His name is announced to all clubs. Any Rotary club may make an additional nomination before 1 December, which must then be endorsed by one percent of all the Rotary clubs of the world (about 250).

If such an event occurs, an election is held by mail ballot. If no additional nomination is presented by the clubs, the person selected by the nominating committee is declared to be the president-nominee. From that point on, that special Rotarian and spouse will spend more than a year in preparation and then a year serving the Rotarians of the world as the international president.

AN UPDATE ON POLIO

From the July 2016 issue of The Rotarian

When was the last time there was polio in Europe? If you guessed 2002, the year the region was certified polio-free, you were wrong. The last time polio affected a child in Europe was last summer. In 2015, two Ukrainian children were diagnosed with paralytic polio, and, given the way the disease manifests itself, that means many more were likely infected and didn’t show symptoms. At least one Western news outlet deemed the outbreak “crazy” – but the reality is that no place on earth is safe from polio until the disease is eradicated everywhere.

Ukraine had fully vaccinated only 50 percent of its children against polio, and low immunization rates are a recipe for an outbreak. In this case, a rare mutation in the weakened strain used in the oral polio vaccine was able to spread because so many children had not been vaccinated. To stop it from progressing, the country needed to administer 5 million to 6 million vaccines through an emergency program. But as recently as March, Ukraine’s ability to do so remained in question.

Finding the occasional case of polio outside Afghanistan and Pakistan, the only countries that have yet to eradicate it, is not unusual. In 2014, just before the World Cup brought travelers from all over the planet to Brazil, the country identified poliovirus in the sewage system at São Paulo’s Viracopos International Airport. Using genetic testing, officials traced its origin to Equatorial Guinea. Brazil’s regular vaccination efforts kept the disease from showing up beyond the airport doors.

Those are frustrating examples for the thousands of people around the world working to eradicate polio. The fight has come a long way, but it is far from over. And while many involved in the effort say we may detect the final naturally occurring case of polio this year, getting to that point – and ensuring that the disease remains gone – will continue to require money, hard work, and the support of Rotarians around the world.

Finding polio

One of the most important aspects of the fight to eradicate polio is detecting where the disease is present. This continuous surveillance is complicated and costly. Ninety percent of people infected with the virus show no symptoms, and those who do usually have mild symptoms such as fever, fatigue, and headaches. Only one in every 200 cases of the illness results in paralysis, which means that for every child with signs of paralysis, several hundred are carrying the disease and may not show it.

But not every case of paralysis is caused by polio. Other viruses that can be responsible for the polio-like symptoms known as acute flaccid paralysis include Japanese encephalitis, West Nile, Guillain-Barré, and Zika. To determine if a patient has polio, doctors must collect a stool specimen and send it to a lab for testing.

To find the patients who don’t present symptoms or don’t make it to a clinic, Rotary and its partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) – the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – have set up environmental sampling in the areas that are most susceptible to the disease. Fifteen to 20 countries are still at high risk despite having eradicated the illness. Because the poliovirus is most easily detected, and most easily contracted, through stool, researchers take samples from sewage systems and, in places that don’t have sewer infrastructure, from rivers and open gutters.

GPEI has developed a network of 145 laboratories around the world that can identify the disease, and Rotary has played a leading role in supporting these facilities. But regular environmental surveillance is “logistically not so easy to do and it’s relatively expensive. It adds a considerable burden to the labs to process the sewage samples,” says Stephen Cochi, senior adviser to the director, Global Immunization Division, at the CDC. “It costs real money to keep that network operational, and this lab network is the most highly sophisticated, state-of-the-art infectious-disease network in the world. Rotarians should be proud of that – it’s the No. 1 network, bar none.”

As part of this system of labs, Rotary has helped fund smaller, more sophisticated local laboratories that are trying to keep track of the complicated genetic variations of the disease. These labs genetically test the poliovirus to follow how it changes as it spreads. All viruses mutate to confuse the human immune system, but the poliovirus is notorious for doing so at a rapid rate. This makes it easier to track the virus’s genetic changes, though the process, vital to the eradication effort, is expensive and will need continued funding. It was these specialized laboratories that allowed Brazilian authorities to trace the virus they found at their airport to Equatorial Guinea.

“Each virus has a fingerprint,” says Cochi, and that is an essential tool for monitoring how the virus is moving around the world.

Vigilance is key to successful surveillance, says Michel Zaffran, director of polio eradication at WHO. “We need to go and investigate a case of paralysis, take specimens, and analyze it. This level of vigilance needs to continue in all of the places that no longer have polio to make sure we are really without polio. This is a hidden cost to the program that people don’t realize is absolutely necessary to maintain.”

Vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate

The appearance of polio in Ukraine last year is a perfect example of why vaccination campaigns are essential – and not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Large-scale vaccinations are an enormous undertaking that require money as well as thousands of volunteers on the ground. And in places where the vaccination programs have been successful, the challenge is now to locate and vaccinate that small percentage of children who have been missed.

The vaccine itself isn’t the biggest expense in a vaccination campaign (in fact, Rotary rarely funds vaccines). It’s the distribution of the vaccine – transportation and staffing, for example – that costs so much. In January, money donated by Rotarians covered the costs of a Cameroun vaccination campaign that involved 34,000 vaccinators and 21,000 rental cars, which volunteers used to canvass neighborhoods and travel from home to home administering the vaccine. Funds also went to more than 3,700 town criers and 45 radio spots in Chad, to more than 14,000 local guides and 500 clan leaders to ensure that the children of nomads were vaccinated in Ethiopia, and to provide training and support for 60,000 community volunteer vaccinators in Afghanistan.

“I think sometimes people don’t realize the scale of what these immunization campaigns are actually like,” says International PolioPlus Committee Chair Michael K. McGovern. “Rotary and its partners have administered 15 billion doses since 2000. We’ve immunized 2.5 billion kids. Repeatedly reaching the kids to raise their immunization levels is very personnel intensive.”

A vaccination campaign is almost mind-bogglingly complex. Rotarians’ contributions pay for planning by technical experts, large-scale communication efforts to make people aware of the benefits of vaccinations and the dates of the campaign, and support for volunteers to go door to door in large cities as well as in remote areas that may not appear on any map.

It sometimes includes overcoming local distrust of government or outsiders and negotiating complicated religious doctrine. And it means trying to understand the movements of nomadic populations or people pushed out of their homes because of unrest. Regardless of how they live their lives, each of these children must be vaccinated. GPEI has addressed some of these issues by setting up vaccination points in highly trafficked transit areas such as train stations or bus depots.

“In northern Nigeria, for example, when there’s unrest, the population tends to move out of dangerous areas,” says WHO’s Zaffran. “So we monitor carefully when a certain area is accessible and when it is not. If Boko Haram was present, we wouldn’t vaccinate, but the minute it was a more quiet situation we’d do a hit and run – a vaccinate and run. Go in for a short time and get out.”

GPEI creates detailed logistical blueprints for vaccination teams, which are constantly refined to ensure that every child is reached. In a process called social mapping, health care workers meet with residents of remote or conflict areas and ask them to draw their area, comparing it with maps and other data to try to find settlements that may have been missed.

On top of the challenge of discovering previously unknown villages or the difficulty in ensuring that every house in a city has been visited by volunteers, there’s the complicated task of negotiating the religious or cultural beliefs that might prevent people from agreeing to be vaccinated. This is one of the areas in which Rotary has excelled, as local Rotarians have taken on the task of helping to vaccinate their neighbors.

According to Reza Hossaini, UNICEF’s chief of polio eradication efforts, vaccinators on the ground have developed relationships with local leaders to identify what local people want and need. These relationships have built enough trust to overcome the “hard-core resistance” that vaccinators have met with in the past. But this level of detail in understanding the psychological reasons that a community would be averse to vaccinating requires scientific, technological, and social skill as well as finding vaccinators who meet the specific needs of each community.

After the last case 

Even if the last case of polio is identified this year, a huge amount of work will remain to ensure that it stays gone.

Vaccinations will continue and need to be funded. In the areas where polio still exists and many of the areas where it has recently been eradicated, the vaccines contain a weakened live version of the virus, which is much more effective than a killed virus at protecting communities from outbreaks, creating what is known as herd immunity. It’s also less expensive to manufacture and distribute and, because it is given orally, much easier to administer than the inactivated, injectable polio vaccine (IPV).

But, while vaccine with live virus has reduced polio by more than 99.9 percent, it carries a small risk.

The weakened live virus inside a vaccine can, rarely, mutate back to a virulent form. Where vaccination coverage is low, it can reinfect populations, even in countries that have been certified polio-free, such as Ukraine.

To prevent this, once the virus has been certified eradicated, all of the live-virus vaccine around the world will be destroyed and replaced with IPV, which does not contain the live virus. This vaccine will be distributed, and trained health care workers will perform injections, a process that has already begun. The polio-fighting community will still need to vaccinate hundreds of millions of children every year until the world is certified polio-free. By that time, polio vaccinations will have become part of routine immunization programs around the world.

Once the final case of polio is recorded, it will take three years to ensure that the last case is, in fact, the final one. That means that if the final case is seen this year, all of these programs will continue to need funding and volunteers until 2019, at a price tag of $1.5 billion that will be funded by governments and donors such as Rotary. That’s in addition to the more than $1.5 billion Rotarians have contributed to the cause so far.

“We are so close. We’ve got a 99.9 percent reduction in polio. But we’re not there yet,” says John Sever, a vice chair of Rotary’s International PolioPlus Committee, who has been part of the eradication effort since the beginning. “Rotarians and others have to keep working. People will naturally say, ‘Well, it seems to be basically gone so let’s move on to other things,’ but the fact is it isn’t gone, and if we move on and don’t complete the job, we set ourselves up for having the disease come right back.”

“Rotary was there at the beginning,” McGovern says. “It would be unfortunate if Rotary isn’t there at the finish line. We’ve done too much, we’ve made too much progress to walk away before we finish.”

By Erin Biba

The Rotarian

16-Jun-2016

YEAR END MESSAGE

"Our vocation should be more than our success. Our success expires, but our significance reaches beyond our selfish pursuits, and by contrast, it outlives us for generations to come."

-- IPDG Felix Stubbs, D7020

A STORY ABOUT LITERACY

...contributed by Rotarian Lou

DAYS FOR GIRLS

What's in a kit? http://www.daysforgirls.org/#!whats-in-a-kit/c623

Please become familiar with our

ClubRunner website

Please view the resources available at http://e7020.org

Peruse the menus as shown below

** ANOTHER STORY ABOUT LITERACY **

Did I read that sign right?

TOILET OUT OF ORDER. PLEASE USE FLOOR BELOW

In a Laundromat:
AUTOMATIC WASHING MACHINES: PLEASE REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHES WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT

In a London department store:
BARGAIN BASEMENT UPSTAIRS

In an office:
WOULD THE PERSON WHO TOOK THE STEP LADDER YESTERDAY PLEASE BRING IT BACK OR FURTHER STEPS WILL BE TAKEN

In an office:
AFTER TEA BREAK STAFF SHOULD EMPTY THE TEAPOT AND STAND UPSIDE DOWN ON THE DRAINING BOARD

Outside a second hand shop:
WE EXCHANGE ANYTHING - BICYCLES, WASHING MACHINES, ETC. WHY NOT BRING YOUR WIFE ALONG AND GET A WONDERFUL BARGAIN?

Notice in health food shop window:
CLOSED DUE TO ILLNESS

Spotted in a safari park:(I sure hope so)
ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR

Seen during a conference:
FOR ANYONE WHO HAS CHILDREN AND DOESN'T KNOW IT, THERE IS A DAY CARE ON THE 1ST FLOOR

Notice in a farmer's field:
THE FARMER ALLOWS WALKERS TO CROSS THE FIELD FOR FREE, BUT THE BULL CHARGES.

Message on a leaflet:
IF YOU CANNOT READ, THIS LEAFLET WILL TELL YOU HOW TO GET LESSONS

On a repair shop door:
WE CAN REPAIR ANYTHING. (PLEASE KNOCK HARD - THE BELL DOESN'T WORK)

...submitted by Rotarian Lou

WHAT HAPPENED ON WEDNESDAY!

June 29

What makes you, you? Psychologists like to talk about our traits, or defined characteristics that make us who we are. But Brian Little is more interested in moments when we transcend those traits — sometimes because our culture demands it of us, and sometimes because we demand it of ourselves. Join Little as he dissects the surprising differences between introverts and extroverts and explains why your personality may be more malleable than you think.

Cambridge research professor (and Canadian) Brian Little analyzes and redefines the threads of our personalities — and suggests ways we can transform ourselves.

Why you should listen

Brian Little is an unapologetic introvert -- but in front of a classroom or a lecture hall, he delivers impassioned and witty explorations of contemporary personality psychology. In Little's view, we are as driven by spontaneous, "out of character" moments (and the projects we are passionate about) as we are by innate and learned traits.

Little's book Me, Myself and Us not only beautifully outlines Little's personality theories, but also imparts potentially life-changing advice for readers, while it warns of the hidden costs of hiding your true personality.

What others say

“I defy you to read his book and not change the way you think about your friends, your family, and yourself.” — Daniel Pink

Plan to join us on a Wednesday to continue to learn and to have fun!

NATIONAL IMMUNIZATION DAY IN INDIA

If you are interested in participating in an NID (National Immunization Day) in India, you may be interested in the following information:

Click these "hot links" below for more information:

http://www.calindiatours.com/rotary/login.aspx

Password - Poliotours

(Both username/password are case sensitive)

http://www.calindiatours.com/downloads/Polio_Tour_Itinerary_India_Trip.pdf

WORLD'S GREATEST MEAL TO END POLIO

Since 2014, with your help, we have raised more than $6 million US towards eradication of polio.

FOUNDATION CORNER

WHAT IS THE ANNUAL FUND

ANNUAL FUND is the primary source of funding for all Foundation activities. Our annual contributions help Rotary Clubs take action to create positive change in communities at home and around the world. Our gift helps strengthen peace efforts, provide clean water and sanitation, support education, grow local economies, save mothers and children and fight disease.

The EVERY ROTARIAN every year (EREY) initiative asks every Rotarian to support The Rotary Foundation every year.