[D9640general] [eFlash_Rotary] Digest Number 741

[Garry & Anne Krischock]

 Messages In This Digest (3 Messages) 
Messages 
  1. 1417: TRF Chair's December 07 Message 
 Thu Dec 6, 2007 6:59 pm (PST) 
Chair's message: Peace is possible 


Dear family of Rotary, 

To write or talk of peace when so many of our friends are on the 
front lines of battle and in harm's way is very difficult. Yet as 
Rotarians, with our Rotary Foundation working for peace through 
educational and humanitarian programs, it is our duty. If we don't, 
who will?

In June, the Foundation sponsored its first Rotary World Peace 
Symposium, an event that spotlighted the students and graduates of 
its peace studies programs. About 175 current participants and alumni 
joined us in Salt Lake City, clearly demonstrating their enthusiasm. 
The hundreds of Rotarians who met these dedicated peacemakers were 
impressed by their commitment, their knowledge, and all they have 
accomplished during their relatively short careers.

Consider that only four classes - about 230 peace fellows - have 
graduated from the Rotary Centers for International Studies in peace 
and conflict resolution, and already they are making a difference. 
Take Miho Kishitani, for example, who is managing reconstruction 
efforts in Iraq, or Stefano Gnes, one of four graduates with the 
World Bank, who is helping communities in Indonesia cope with 
political turmoil and the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. The list 
goes on. Name a part of the world facing conflict or strife, and 
you're likely to find Foundation alumni there, working to reach a 
lasting peace that is beneficial for all.

To see such results so quickly is very heartening and indeed 
inspiring. We can all take great pride in the far-reaching effects of 
our peace studies programs. That's why our continued support is so 
crucial. I encourage all Rotarians to consider making a gift that 
will help us fully endow the Rotary Centers and to nominate promising 
candidates as future peace fellows. By acting now, we can ensure that 
every year, a new class of peacemakers is sent out to make our world 
a little less troubled.

Robert S. Scott 
Trustee Chair, The Rotary Foundation, 2007-08 

Source: The Rotary Foundation
Courtesy: eFlash_Rotary


2. 1418: Past RI Director and Rotary Foundation Trustee Theodoro dies 
 Thu Dec 6, 2007 7:02 pm (PST) 
Past RI Director and Rotary Foundation Trustee Theodoro dies 

Past RI Director Archimedes Theodoro, of Belo Horizonte, Minas 
Gerais, Brazil, died 5 December. 

Theodoro joined the Rotary Club of Belo Horizonte in 1948. He served 
as RI director for 1980-82 and as Rotary Foundation trustee for 1996-
99. His service to RI began in 1961-62, when he was governor of 
District 4760. Theodoro held other RI positions, including 
information institute and extension counselor, as well as committee 
and consultative group member and chair.

A retired pediatrician, Theodoro was a past director of Brazil's 
regional Children's Department and served as both the adjunct state 
secretary of health and the general superintendent of the Hospitalar 
Foundation of Minas Gerais. He held numerous posts in professional 
associations, including the Mineira Academy of Medicine, the 
Brazilian Society of Pediatrics, and the American Academy of 
Pediatrics. He also served as vice president of the Federation of 
Philanthropic Hospitals of Minas Gerais. Theodoro was honored by both 
the state and national governments and by public and private 
institutions for contributions in his field.

Funeral services were held on 6 December at Cemitério Parque da 
Colina in Belo Horizonte. Condolences may be sent to his spouse, 
Yolanda Theodoro, at Rua Gonçalves Dias, 3144, Apto. 302, 30140-093 
Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Source: Rotary International News
Courtesy: eFlash_Rotary


3. 1419:  Standing tall 
 Thu Dec 6, 2007 7:07 pm (PST) 
Standing tall 

By Betina Kozlowski 

One-woman campaign to keep polio out of mainland Africa's smallest 
country scores big victory

It had looked like it might never happen. But in June, there they 
were, hundreds of volunteers marching down dirt roads, on their way 
to deliver polio vaccine to children in the smallest nation on the 
African continent. There were the high-powered government officials 
who'd come to wish the team well, and even administer a few drops of 
vaccine themselves. And in the middle of them all, dressed for work 
in a baseball cap, T-shirt, and proud smile was Rotarian Oumou Seydou 
Tall, the indefatigable woman who almost single-handedly - and 
against all odds - had made this day a reality.

For more than a year, Tall, the Gambia PolioPlus Committee chair and 
a member of the Rotary Club of Fajara, had sought to hold a National 
Immunization Day (NID) in the country, only to find that there simply 
wasn't enough money. Polio had slipped down the list of priorities 
for Gambia, a tiny sliver of land surrounded by Senegal, in West 
Africa. The government had a mandatory immunization program that 
reached 90 percent of newborns but was unable to do more. The 
international community considered Gambia polio-free and was 
directing its limited resources to countries deemed to be at higher 
risk.

Tall, a 51-year-old divorced mother, was convinced that polio in 
Gambia deserved more attention. After all, she argued, 10 percent of 
the nation's children had not yet been immunized. And that wasn't 
even counting the children of immigrants, large numbers of whom had 
entered the country from Liberia and Sierra Leone - troubled nations 
with spotty immunization records. Plus, migrant workers could always 
carry the disease from Nigeria, where polio is still endemic.

A consummate networker, Tall told everyone who would listen that the 
threat of polio in Gambia was real. She worked the phones and got 
herself invited to all the right gatherings. She gave speeches to 
international delegations and met with government officials and 
everyone else who mattered.

She was, quite simply, unrelenting - though affably so. Tall "is 
certainly not the type to be modest with her thoughts and views 
during meetings," says Mathew Baldeh, a UNICEF immunization officer 
who works with her on polio eradication efforts. He adds that "she 
has a strong sense of humor, and she's a warm and pleasant woman."

In April 2006, at Tall's urging, PolioPlus Program Division Manager 
Carol Pandak and Africa PolioPlus Committee Chair Ambroise 
Tshimbalanga-Kasongo traveled to Gambia to survey the situation. It 
was a discouraging few days for Tall, as government and aid officials 
repeatedly said there wouldn't be enough funding to hold an NID. But 
while she was dropping Pandak off at the airport, Tall spotted 
Patrick Chang, Taiwan's ambassador to Gambia, waiting in the 
departure lounge.

She immediately approached him: "When I saw him, I said, `Wait! You 
are exactly the person we have been waiting for!'" Not only had Chang 
been a longtime member of the Rotary Club of Taipei, but his 
government had been a generous donor to Gambia. Tall asked the 
ambassador whether he could help. Six months later, she had a check 
from the Taiwanese government for US$150,000 - enough to cover the 
Subnational Immunization Days (SNIDs) in June, which reached 235,000 
children.

Driven to help
A native of Senegal, Tall moved to Gambia 17 years ago. She has a 24-
year-old daughter, who is studying computer science in Europe. But 
she feels a responsibility to all children. Since 1990, she has been 
regional administrative secretary and public relations officer for 
the international charity SOS-Kinderdorf, which raises orphaned and 
abandoned children in community settings and works to prevent child 
abandonment. As a charter member of the Fajara club, located in a 
town on Gambia's coast, she has helped coordinate projects to improve 
local schools, hospitals, and drinking water.

And last year, even as she was orchestrating her one-woman campaign 
against polio in Gambia, she was leading an effort to help a young 
orphaned girl whose eyesight had been badly affected by a brain 
defect. For more than 12 months, Tall worked with a group of Dutch 
Rotarians to figure out all the details, and this April was able to 
bring the girl from Gambia to Amsterdam, where she received an MRI 
and a full battery of medical tests.

It's that sort of tenacity that brought Tall to the attention of 
leaders in both Rotary and her country. As her club's president in 
2003-04, she played an instrumental role in making Gambia's 
president, Yahya Jammeh, an honorary Rotarian. With help from 
Jammeh's personal contributions, the Fajara club has, for five years 
in a row, been one of the top Rotary Foundation donors among all the 
clubs in District 9100, which encompasses 14 countries.

In June 2005, Frank Devlyn, then Foundation trustee chair-elect, 
asked Tall to head up the Gambia PolioPlus Committee. She accepted 
without hesitation and immediately went to work, talking about Rotary 
and the history of PolioPlus whenever she could. She was a "breath of 
fresh air," says Cheryl Gregory Faye, former UNICEF representative to 
Gambia, recalling Tall's address to a group of high-level Gambian and 
international officials.

The large turnout for the most recent vaccination push started rather 
modestly during Tall's first NID in November 2005, when she found 
herself the lone Rotarian standing in a square in Manjai, a suburb of 
the Gambian capital, Banjul. She was a neophyte at immunization 
drives, surrounded by 17 teenage volunteers who stared up at her, 
waiting for instructions.

Tall swallowed hard and called some fellow Rotarians on her cell 
phone. At first, she had difficulty reaching anyone. "It was 
Saturday, and the idea of spending errand day driving around on dusty 
roads and knocking on the doors of complete strangers to administer 
vaccines just seemed too outlandish," Tall says. "Maybe because the 
virus was dormant, we became a bit dormant."

But she didn't give up. "Let's get moving," she told her young 
helpers.

They spread out, going door to door. When it came time to move on to 
the next vaccination point, she packed in as many teenagers as she 
could fit into her rather unroadworthy car, feeding them sandwiches 
along the way so as not to waste even a minute. All along, she kept 
calling her fellow Rotarians, a couple of whom eventually joined her.

Tall says the day was one of the most emotional experiences of her 
life. Her father was a doctor, and as a child, she had once dreamed 
of a medical career. Now, finally, she was getting the chance to 
contribute to the health of so many children. "Those two drops seem 
so insignificant, yet when you see that they can prevent a child from 
crawling on her stomach for the rest of her life, then you see the 
magnitude of it," she explains.

Searching for solutions
After the 2005 NIDs, Tall had high hopes for the next year, but she 
was disappointed. Even after the donation from Taiwan came through in 
October 2006, it appeared that it might not be enough for a national 
campaign. But Tall persevered. Eventually, the Gambian Department of 
State for Health and Welfare, the Taiwanese benefactors, UNICEF, and 
the World Health Organization agreed to participate in scaled-back 
SNIDs that covered the capital and surrounding areas.

When the June effort launched, Gambia's secretary of state for health 
and social welfare, the director of health, a local mayor, the 
Taiwanese ambassador, and the WHO country representative were 
present, among other dignitaries. The Centre for Innovation Against 
Malaria, a local charity, joined too, delivering mosquito nets to 
many of the children targeted by the immunization drive.

This time, Tall, working with the presidents of two local Rotary 
clubs, had no trouble rallying nine Rotarians and one prospective 
member to join the other volunteers, all of whom pitched in to 
deliver vaccine. But on one of those five hot days, the team was 
having trouble finding children to vaccinate because school was in 
session. Undeterred, Tall marched to the school and asked whether she 
could interrupt class to administer the vaccine.

At first, the teacher was hesitant and asked her to come back 
later. "That's not possible," said Tall. She flashed her trademark 
smile, presented her case, and finally let it be known that she was 
the Oumou Seydou Tall.

After each of the children in the class had been immunized, the 
teacher thanked the team. On the way out, Tall gave her own lesson 
to one of her teenage volunteers.

"You see," she told the young man, "you never know what you can get 
until you've asked."

Source: The Rotarian 
Courtesy: eFlash_Rotary
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