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World Polio Day 2018

Narberth and Whitland Rotary Club Commemorate World Polio Day 2018


The 24th October 2018 was World Polio Day and the Rotary Club of Narberth & Whitland together the Rotakids of Narberth Junior School and local Businesses and organisations commemorated the day.

At a special morning assembly at Narberth Junior School, the children learnt about Polio and the End Polio Now campaign from visiting Rotarians and the pupils had a finger nail painted purple to commemorate the day and the polio vaccine. Pupils had donated a £1 each to the End Polio Now Campaign by wearing their own purple clothes for the day, whilst Huw Adams of The Pembrokeshire Vintage Motorcycle Club had brought along a purple BMW to the school which caused great excitement. .


Several local buildings, The Queens Hall, The Plas Hyfryd Hotel and The Eagle Inn have also changed their outdoor lights to purple this week to commemorate World Polio Day 

Pictures of the day's activities and the floodlit buildings are attached to this post


ROTARY HELPS TO END POLIO NOW

Rotary International world-wide, along with our partners, has reduced polio cases by 99.9 percent worldwide since our first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979. We are close to eradicating polio, but we need help from the public to make a global impact and protect children against polio forever.

Tony Ensom, President of the Narberth& Whitland Rotary club said: "Globally, Rotarians have helped immunize more than 2.5 billion children against polio in 122 countries. For as little as $0.60, a child can be protected against this crippling disease for life".

Pakistan is one of the three remaining countries in the world where poliomyelitis (polio) is still categorised as an endemic viral infection, the others being Afghanistan and Nigeria. As of October 2015, there had  been 38 documented cases of wild poliovirus in Pakistan. The disease is still present as of 2018.

Narberth & Whitland members have several committees dealing with the running of the club's affairs and community involvement. Rotarian Nigel Towns is the chair of International and foundation. Two of his committee members, Yvonne Llewellyn and Robert Elward, have assisted him in promoting awareness of the "End Polio Now Campaign" by involving the local primary school and four prominent  Narberth businesses.

World Polio Day is Wednesday 24th October and the businesses have agreed to illuminate their buildings in the dark evening with external purple colour lighting. The Rotary Club is grateful to The Queen's Hall, Andrew Rees butchers and Tom Hunt at the Dragon Inn and Jackie Jones of The Plas Hotel for agreeing to participate. The purple lights will be switched on during the week commencing 22 October.

The significance of purple is that when each child is given the vaccine in third world countries they place their index finger in a pad of purple dye to show that they have been immunised.

The Rotary Club of Narberth & Whitland adopted this purple colour as a theme with the sale of purple crocuses during the past few years as a fundraising and public awareness initiative. In the UK 2.5 million purple crocus corms have now been delivered to Rotary districts ready for planting on or around World Polio Day. Chef Darren and Waitress Poppy are pictured outside the Dragon Inn with Purple Crocus table decorations which can be used in the restaurant in Polio week. Our thanks to Tom Hunt for participating in this campaign.

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Rotarians and friends outside the purple floodlit Plas Hyfryd Hotel, Marberth.

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