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?
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.
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!