The Rotary Clubs of the Sunshine Coast are combining efforts to bring polio survivor and champion for polio eradication, Ramesh Ferris, to the Sunshine Coast. This visit is planned for November to raise awareness for the global campaign to eradicate polio.
Born in India, Ferris contracted polio when he was only six months old. His legs were left paralyzed for life. With no means or access to rehabilitation for him, Ferris’s mother placed him for adoption with a Canadian family in the Yukon.
In 2002, Ferris returned to India to meet his biological mother and to visit the orphanage where he once lived. During the visit, Ferris learned of polio survivors who, without the necessary medical attention and supports, were forced to pad their knees with cut-up pieces of tire and crawl on the ground. Since then, Ferris has worked tirelessly to raise awareness in support of the fight to eradicate polio.
Ferris volunteers his time in partnership with Rotary International, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Global Poverty Project, travelling around the world to share his experiences living with the effects of polio and highlighting the great progress of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. He is a firm believer that a case of polio anywhere in the world is a threat to children everywhere.
Rotary members worldwide have contributed more than US$1.3 billion and countless volunteer hours to the polio eradication effort. Rotary, in conjunction with other partners, has reduced polio cases by 99 per cent worldwide since its first project to vaccinate children in the Philippines in 1979.
“Rotary continues to be the heart and soul of polio eradication,” Gates Foundation co-chair Bill Gates wrote in his annual letter issued in January.
The other spearheading partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative are the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To learn more about polio eradication, including how to participate in this historic effort, see www.rotary.org/endpolio. For photos, video or more information, see www.rotary.org/mediacenter
For more information about Ferris, see his Facebook page
