More women die from cervical cancer in Pacific Island countries than in New Zealand and Australia. In parts of the Pacific, nearly 1 in 18 children die before their 5th birthday from vaccine-preventable diseases. We are going to stop that!
To celebrate 100 years of Rotary in New Zealand and Australia, we’ve teamed up with UNICEF to give life-saving vaccines to 100,000 children across the Pacific. Rotary Give Every Child A Future is a sustainable project that will ensure generations of children and women are protected against cervical cancer, rotavirus, and pneumococcal disease.
Grant Spackman
The project will save lives in our own part of the world and it demonstrates the relevance of Rotary in the 21st century.
Despite improvements in vaccine programs, the poorest and hardest to reach children are still being left behind.
Diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhea remain leading killers of children under five years and high rates of life-threatening cervical cancer continue to devastate Pacific Island families. Poor health systems, limited government resources and families living in difficult to reach areas mean children are missing out on life-saving vaccines.
The plan is to protect children from rotavirus, pneumococcal disease, and cervical cancer, across nine Pacific Island Countries: Nauru, Tuvalu, Samoa, Vanuatu, Tonga, Niue, Cook Islands, Kiribati and Tokelau over the next three years:
The HPV vaccine will be given to girls to prevent cervical cancer in later life and the Rotavirus and pneumococcal vaccines to all children to reduce illness and deaths from gastroenteritis, pneumonia, and meningitis.
In partnership with UNICEF, Rotary will develop and implement immunisation programs that will deliver the three vaccines to children across the Pacific Islands. Working with these nine countries” governments we will ensure the programs are sustainable and protect families for generations to come.
While there are several centenary projects this is the one project that covers all of Australasia and every Rotary club is encouraged to participate.
We need to raise NZ/A$ 4.5 million and to do this we need every Rotary club to support this project and all districts to support through their DDF.
Please see the website
Rotary Give Every Child A Future
For more information. You can email through the site to request a speaker for your club everychildafuture.com