By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)
Pakistan’s Rotary Polio Plus Committee,
headed by Aziz Memon, observed the World Polio Day 2012 on October 24 with
unprecedented enthusiasm throughout the country.
The various Rotary Clubs, with
the collaboration of the Polio Plus Committee, organized numerous programmes
all over Pakistan while a lot of people
around the globe participated in the World’s Biggest Commercial, promoting the
international effort to eradicate the devastating disease.
The innovative, interactive
online initiative provided everyone a chance to join Archbishop Desmond Tutu,
Bill Gates, Jackie Chan, Angelique Kidjo, and other world figures and
celebrities having already joined in Rotary’s This Close campaign in support of polio eradication.
The participants uploaded
photos of themselves to Rotary’s polio eradication website, endpolionow.org, edited into the
constantly expanding promotional spot. They were sent an email with a direct
link to their image and comment within the commercial.
Rotary International also
released End
Polio Now, an eclectic album of songs performed by its celebrity
polio eradication ambassadors from the music industry. The album
is available for download on iTunes, and soon as a CD from shop.rotary.org, with all
proceeds from sales going to PolioPlus.
The Rotary Club of Karachi
Creek and the Rotary Club of Karachi Kolachi joined hands to put up a Polio
Awareness Stall on World Polio Day, on the ground floor of the Park Towers
Mall, located in main Clifton.
Visited by hundreds of people
on a daily basis, more so these days, due to the forthcoming festival of Eid,
the EPN banners on pillars caught many people's attention. A volunteer doctor
has been made available at the stall screened for blood sugar free-of-charge,
attracting adults.
Pakistan’s National Chair,
Polio Plus Committee, Aziz Memon, led by example which was followed by
District Governor-Elect Dr Pir Ebrahim Shah, Media Coordinator for Karachi, PP
Jamsheed Zahidi, PP Tahira Khan, PP Irfan Qureshi, Rotaractors who volunteered
to man the stall and distribute IEC and social mobilization material to children
and adults.
Dr Nadia Farhan Essa from RCK
Creek was instrumental in organizing the polio camp and stall which became a
centre of attraction at Park Towers.
Similar stalls were set up in
many other bustling shopping malls of Karachi and other cities of Pakistan. A
three-page newspaper supplement was also brought out by the Polio Plus
Committee to mark the occasion.
“Coinciding with World Polio
Day, Rotary is ramping up its advocacy work in the 200 countries and regions
where Rotary clubs exist to encourage every national government to commit to
help meet a $700 million funding shortfall for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative through 2013,” Pakistan’s National
Chair, Polio Plus Committee, Aziz Memon, disclosed.
“Although new polio cases are
at an all-time low, there were fewer than 180 worldwide in 2012 as
of October 16 the funding gap has already curtailed scheduled immunization
activities in polio-affected countries. If eradication fails and polio
rebounds, up to 200,000 children per year could be paralyzed,” he warned.
‘The governments need to step
up and honour their commitments to polio eradication if we are to achieve our
goal of a polio-free world. We are at a true tipping point, with success never
closer than it is right now. We must seize the advantage by acting immediately,
or risk breaking our pledge to the world’s children,” the Chair of the
Rotary Foundation, Wilfrid J. Wilkinson, remarked in his message on the World
Polio Day 2012.
