Helping Survivors of Polio in India.
January 2018 to August 2024
Helping Survivors of Polio in India.
January 2018 to August 2024
The need, the vision, the strategy.
Why polio survivors?
I created this humanitarian focus in January 2018 after extensive travel throughout India.
The polio survivors I encountered there were illiterate and homeless, most unable to walk, left to drag their mangled bodies through the filthy streets - begging.
An extraordinary level of poverty, even for India.
How could I return home year after year and
do nothing?
( see blog)
Why India?
In researching the problem I discovered as recently as 2009 over half of all polio cases globally were in India.
Those afflicted at that time and since are now adults, now on the streets.
As I began to try to make sense of this, it became clear, they were invisible to the passer-byers.
In their still prevalent Caste system, they were untouchables.
They were invisible.
(blog to follow)
Why not Rotary to help?
Why not Rotary to help?
Where to start?
It seemed a natural fit, with Rotary International's polio immunization program, the flood of new polio cases in India stopped....
I felt confident they would welcome this added focus - as I presented the devastated bodies, as a way for Rotary to showcase to the world the catastrophic impact of this illness eradicated.
For Rotary to showcase their success!
(blog to follow)