enero 2017

From the October 2016 issue of The Rotarian
Hundreds of people gather in an open-air courtyard at University Central Hospital in Kigali, Rwanda. Men in suits, women in flowered dresses, even prisoners in pink and orange gowns are waiting to find out if they will receive medical care. Some have no visible signs of injury. Others arrived on crutches, with arms in slings, or with catheters protruding from their clothing. Several have swollen, broken limbs: injuries that should have been mended long ago but were neglected because of the country’s long surgical-ward backlog, or simply poverty….

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From the October 2016 issue of The Rotarian
Tom Frieden is a little out of breath. He just climbed the stairs from a meeting to his office on the top floor of the 12-story headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. “I did that because we have a beautiful stairway in this building. I can look outside, and I get better email coverage on the stairs than I do in the elevator,” the CDC director says. His trip up the stairs sums up his view on one of the tenets of his work: “The sweet spot of public health is making the healthiest thing to do the default value…

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From the October 2016 issue of The Rotarian
Next to getting your facts straight, one of the challenges of writing about historical figures is dealing with other characters who pop up and start hijacking the narrative. These are people who keep doing things so unexpected and compelling that you must find out what made them tick. The problem is that they’ve usually been dead for years, along with anyone who knew them. Left with bits of information – when they were born, where they went to school, whom they married, where they worked – you have to hope that something drops into your lap that…

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I was born in 1978 in Mumbai to a domestic worker and single mother. At six months old, I was paralyzed from the hips down by polio. The chances of surviving in India until your 18th birthday with a disability are very slim. My mother was unable to care for me and left me at an orphanage. I don’t remember much about my time there because I was so young, but I know the conditions were primitive. I had no real hope that my life would become anything of note or that I would have the opportunity to be independent and overcome the burden of a very preventable disease.
I didn’t know it then, but…

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The Rotary Foundation has received the highest possible score from Charity Navigator, an independent evaluator of charities in the U.S.
In the most recent ratings, released on 1 September, The Rotary Foundation earned the maximum 100 points for both demonstrating strong financial health and commitment to accountability and transparency. 
The Foundation also received its ninth straight 4-star rating from Charity Navigator. «Attaining a 4-star rating verifies that The Rotary Foundation of Rotary International exceeds industry standards and outperforms most charities in your area of work,» said…

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Rotary clubs of District 6200 are collecting relief funds to help thousands of victims after record flooding devastated communities in southern Louisiana, USA, earlier this month. Torrential rains caused rivers, streams, and bayous to swell, damaging or destroying more than 60,000 homes and killing at least 13 people.
The U.S. Coast Guard and emergency responders helped rescue more than 30,000 residents from the rising flood waters. As of 25 August, more than 3,000 residents were still in emergency shelters even after the water receded.
Donate to District 6200 disaster relief fund.

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Where are we in the fight to eradicate polio? What’s left to do? And why does it cost so much? Rotary’s World Polio Day event on 24 October will answer these questions and more.
Health officials from our partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative will join Rotary leaders and special guests at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, to give a status update on the eradication campaign.
The wild poliovirus has caused fewer new cases of the disease so far this year than this time last year, but recent setbacks in Nigeria — which was re-classified as polio…

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Nigeria reported three cases of wild poliovirus in the northeastern state of Borno in August of this year. Following the World Health Organization’s confirmation of these cases, the country returned to the list of polio-endemic countries. The other polio-endemic countries are Afghanistan and Pakistan.
These are the first cases detected in the country since July 2014, and while this news is disappointing for all Rotary members, we are confident that Nigeria can defeat polio. Rotary provided $500,000 to assist immediately with the outbreak response, and an emergency response plan has been put…

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Saginaw Street, paved with 116-year-old bricks and lined with restaurants, runs through the heart of downtown Flint, Mich. Around the corner you’ll find a farmers market, a row of museums, a craft brewery, and three campuses: the University of Michigan at Flint, Kettering University (formerly known as General Motors Institute), and the highly rated Mott Community College. In many ways, Flint fits right in with other quaint and trendy towns in America.
But while parts of the city are experiencing a renaissance, 40 percent of Flint residents live below the poverty line. And although the murder…

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“Agriculture is the lifeblood of Arkansas; it’s the state’s original business,” says Sharon Tallach Vogelpohl, an Arkansas Rotarian for nearly 20 years. But that business has become more challenging in recent years as row-crop farming has become more commoditized, making it difficult for families who have been farming for generations to make an adequate living.
Vogelpohl, who was club president during the Rotary Club of Little Rock’s centennial year in 2014, says club members wanted to mark the milestone with a project that would have a lasting, local impact. “With all the good that Rotary…

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