Dear Fellow Rotarians,
The theme for April is Maternal and Child Health, which is also one of Rotary’s Areas of Focus. Every day, women risk their lives by giving birth and children under the age of five die each year from preventable diseases like malnutrition, poor health care and inadequate sanitation.
How does Rotary help? We provide immunizations to babies and improve access to basic medical services to vulnerable women and children. Women are taught how to breast feed and protect themselves and their children from diseases.
Some wonderful projects within our own District 7020 are providing baby baskets to mothers in need and school programs that provide medical checkups and nutritional classes carried out by Doctors and Dieticians, to name a few.
Clubs in Japan and Brazil used a Global Grant to equip a hospital with lifesaving neonatal equipment including five incubators, five ventilators, three heated cribs, five vital sign monitors and a super LED micro processed phototherapy unit to treat babies with jaundice.
Another Global Grant was used in rural China to save the children born with congenital heart defects. The Global Grant was used to provide heart surgeries to the children in need.
“If mothers are empowered and healthy, so are their families, leading to an alleviation of poverty and hunger.“ – Robert Zinser, co-founder of the Rotarian Action Group for Population and Development.
YIRS,
Louis Wever
District Governor 2021-2022
District 7020
