Rotary Causes - A Seven Part Series
Rotary is dedicated to causes that build international relationships, improve lives, and create a better world to support our peace efforts and end polio forever.
Part 4 - Saving mothers and children
Rotary makes high-quality health care available to vulnerable mothers and children so they can live longer and grow stronger.
We expand access to quality care, so mothers and children everywhere can have the same opportunities for a healthy future. An estimated 5.9 million children under the age of five die each year because of malnutrition, inadequate health care, and poor sanitation — all of which can be prevented.
HOW ROTARY MAKES HELP HAPPEN
Rotary provides education, immunizations, birth kits, and mobile health clinics. Women are taught how to prevent mother-to-infant HIV transmission, how to breast-feed, and how to protect themselves and their children from disease.
Examples from Around the World
Two clubs in Japan and two in Brazil partnered to use a Rotary Foundation global grant to equip a hospital with lifesaving neonatal equipment. Through the partnership, Brazilian Rotarians raised $172,500.
They funded equipment including five incubators for the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), which nearly doubled the hospital’s capacity to care for fragile newborns. In 2013, 129 babies were admitted to the NICU; since the completion of the project, the hospital has been able to care for about 220 babies per year.
In the mountains of Poland, 26 Ukrainian children traumatized by violence get a chance to be kids again at Rotary camp where psychologists mix escape and therapy. The program, called Vacation 2017 Zakopane: Well-Being for Ukrainian Kids, includes traditional camp activities and field trips along with support from mental health professionals. More than 100 children have attended over the past four years.
Rotary programs improve women’s access to skilled health personnel: doctors, nurses, midwives, or community health care workers.
There are hundreds of examples of Rotarians from clubs around the world working together, using Rotary Global Grants to fund projects that directly affect the health and well being of mothers and children.
Next Cause: Supporting education
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