Jane Lagaay, a Mosque, Business and Polio Plus

Last Week

Jane Lagaay told us about herself, from growing up on a farm outside Adelaide in he Eastern Cape to heading up the SG Mobility Division of Super Group, a logistics, supply chain management and transportation company that has about 7 000 employees.  They took over a logistics company that she started with a group of friends.  It was a really interesting talk and we are privileged to have someone of her stature in our club.

Visit to the Nizamiye Turkish Mosque Complex in Midrand

This really was a fascinating outing, partly because our guide was so entertaining.  The mosque and school are part of the international Gulenist Movement that follows the moderate Islamist teachings of Fethullah Gulen and is noted for its schools and the importance it places on inter-faith dialogue and cooperation.  It is not popular with many other interpretations of Islam but is praised by many for its progressive approach. The movement has schools and universities in 180 countries.  The Nizamiye Mosque was financed by Ali Katircioglu who added a clinic to the complex at the request of former President Nelson Mandela.   

The complex is enormous.  The school is bottom right.

Here we are preparing to enter the mosque with some strangers bottom right.

Once inside identities changed completely.

And some people even fell asleep after taking their photographs as the carpet was so comfortable.

Afterwards it was lunch in the Turkish Restaurant...and I think many of us will be happy to return for the food.  Afterwards a few of us bought baklava at the bakery . 

Many thanks to Lori Bramwell-Jones for organising such an enjoyable outing.  Also thanks to Lyn Collocott for the photographs other than the two sleepers who were captured by Jean Barnardo.

This Week is a Business Meeting so if you are one of our non members who wants to see what the club gets up to....other than have speakers and outings......then this is the meeting to attend. You will hear all about the projects we are involved with and how we try to make our community a better place for everyone.
Rotary's motto is Service above Self.  This meeting will show you how, as the Rotary Club of Rosebank (Johannesburg)we try to live up to it.

Rotary Family Health Project in South Africa

MEET OUR POLIO PARTNERS

Eradicating polio is a complex job. Since 1988, we’ve collaborated with the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF to tackle the disease through our Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Here’s how our roles break down.

THE STRATEGIST: WHO

The World Health Organization (WHO) coordinates the management and administration of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and provides technical and operational support to ministries of health in countries around the world. WHO is responsible for monitoring our progress and strategic planning.

THE VIRUS HUNTER: CDC

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deploys epidemiologists, public health experts, and scientists to investigate outbreaks of polio, identify the strain of poliovirus involved, and pinpoint its geographic origin.

THE IMMUNIZER: UNICEF

UNICEF buys polio vaccine and manages its distribution. The agency spreads the word about the benefits of vaccination to gain community acceptance – a process known as social mobilization. On the ground, field workers immunize children with the help of local health workers and volunteers such as Rotarians.

THE ADVOCATE: ROTARY

Rotary uses its members’ business acumen and passion for volunteerism to build awareness, fundraise, and encourage national governments to donate to and otherwise support the polio eradication effort. More than one million Rotary members have volunteered their time and personal resources to help end polio.

OUR OTHER PARTNERS

WHO, CDC, UNICEF, and Rotary spearheaded the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, but many other partners help us work toward our vision of a polio-free world.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: The Gates Foundation is a core partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. It is the largest private funding source of the GPEI, contributing over $1.9 billion to the fight against polio. The Gates Foundation will match all donations to Rotary for polio two to one, up to $35 million per year, through 2018.

National governments: Governments are the largest donors to the polio eradication effort. Without the financial support of governments worldwide, and especially political support in polio-endemic and at-risk countries, we could not administer the polio vaccine.

Local health workers: Local health workers often risk their lives to vaccinate children. For example, women in Pakistan receive training to go door to door, speaking to mothers about the benefits of the vaccine. They address fears and help bring the vaccine into remote communities.

Gavi: Gavi is an international vaccine alliance that brings vaccines to some of the world’s poorest countries. It is working with the GPEI to introduce at least one dose of the injectable inactivated polio vaccine into the routine immunization schedule.

Welcome again, Gushwell Brooks, Jane Lagaay & Bringing Education to Rural Mexico.

 Last Week

President Neville Howes welcomed another three former members of Orange Grove into our club, Cesare Vidulich, Tutty Faber and Bernard Neuhaus....also in the picture is Steven Anastopoulos who we welcomed a couple of weeks ago.  We are delighted to have you.

Our Speaker was Gushwell Brooks who gave us a well illustrated talk on the whole issue of Migration and the differentiation between Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Economic Migrants when there is a tendency to lump them all together as migrants.  The figures that quoted were amazing, 1,8 million in Turkey alone!

The figures for South Africa were extremely interesting because the numbers are surprisingly small:

• 82% of the working population between the ages of 15 & 64 are non-migrants
• 26,16% of non-migrants are unemployed
• 32,31% of 'domestic' migrants are unemployed
• 14% of 'international' migrants are unemployed, though their employment is often precarious
• 11% are employers
• 21% are classed as 'self-employed'
• only 5% of non-migrants & domestic migrants are employers or self-employed.
• migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers only constitute 3-4% of the population

This Week

Our speaker this week is one of our members, Jane Lagaay.  She will be talking about herself and what she does at Supergroup.  Her classification is 'Logistics' which sounds mysterious to me.  We are all looking forward to hearing what she has to say.

  

BRINGING EDUCATION TO RURAL MEXICAN AREA, ONE SCHOOL AT A TIME

Carolina Gonzales Rivas, a scholarship recipient and member of the Rotary Club of Jaltemba-La Peñita, Mexico, talks about how Rotary has influenced her life.

When Mariana Day moved in 1989 to the small beach town of Chacala, in Nayarit, Mexico, she noticed that the surrounding rural areas struggled to maintain schools. And most children weren’t able to go beyond an eighth-grade education. Day, who is a member of the Rotary Club of Bahía de Jaltemba-La Peñita, in Nayarit, had started a local scholarship program before she joined Rotary. Called Changing Lives, the program provided students with high school tuition, uniforms, school supplies, and transportation.

In addition, Rotary clubs from the United States and Mexico have been investing in the education of children in Nayarit since 2003, providing scholarships and libraries and rehabbing school buildings.

The lasting impact in the region is apparent.

“I think the combination of the scholarship program and Rotary’s interaction with the schools has made things seem possible, has changed the climate of education here, and the way the people think about education,” Day says.

One example of Rotary’s impact is Carolina Gonzales Rivas. She was able to attend high school thanks to Day’s scholarship program. Rivas is currently working on her master’s degree and has recently joined the Rotary Club of Jaltemba-La Peñita.

“I think that what Rotary is doing by supporting education and supporting students is to have a vision for life, to have aspirations – that’s what is going to change the world,” Rivas says.

The Rotary Club of Berkeley, in California, USA, along with the Bahia de Jaltemba-La Peñita club and other North American clubs, recently tackled their largest project to date: a monthlong renovation of La Preparatoria 20 de Noviembre , a high school in the village of Las Varas. Funding came from a Rotary Foundation global grant and the financial contributions of six Rotary districts covering the 25 Rotary clubs that participated.

A total of 90 volunteers including the school’s teachers, students, and students’ parents, improved the old buildings and built three laboratory classrooms. All three feature new equipment and technology and can be used by local residents as well as students.

Eduardo Dominguez, a member of the Bahía de Jaltemba-La Peñita club, says one of the biggest rewards of these efforts is the fact that a college education is now a real possibility for local students.

“There are many young people in Mexico with huge potential and with much to give, as long as they are given an opportunity,” Dominguez says. “Rotarians are helping those opportunities to occur, for [these young people] to become contributors to their communities.”

Friedman, Firlands, Gushwell and Bhutto Zardari

Last Week 
Professor Steven Friedman spoke about the new radical student activities on campus and how they were symptomatic of a much larger problem that encompassed the black middle class..a perceived lack of acceptance by the white community, formerly white institutions where blacks do not feel welcome and a host of other things.  He talked about hard-wired perceptions that we have just by being brought up here.  It's not prejudicial, just a natural knee-jerk reaction, and he gave a number of examples such as the frisson that runs through a local aircraft when the pilot is black.  It was a fascinating and thought-provoking talk.

Firlands Fete
The club always helps on the bookstall at the Salvation Army Firlands Fete every year.  Apparently it was a great financial success though we don't know the final figures yet.

Rotary Leadership Institute

The Part 3 Course Candidates

Peter James-Smith attended Part 3 of the RLI course last Saturday.  "I felt I needed to get a bit more up-to-date on Rotary," he said. "And Part 3 was really interesting as it contained such things as membership problems and there is a lot of interaction with other Rotarians from different parts of the District.  I would encourage any Rotarian to do RLI courses because I have found them very valuable.  RLI is separate from the District and Rotary International and so you get a broader perspective."

This Week

It's great when someone steps into the breach when our advertised speaker was not available.  Many thanks to Gushwell Brooks for agreeing to talk to us at the last minute.
He presents on 702 and Cape Talk as well as Radio Veritas.  He has an LLB from Wits and then slaved away in a corporate before deciding to escape.  He currently works for the Jesuit Refugee Services and he will be talking on "Migration".

Don't forget to let Mark Franklin know if you want to attend the wine tasting on the 17th......and let Lori Bramwell-Jones know if you want to visit the Turkish Mosque and Restaurant on the 12th.

From the Youth Committee

Donation in memory of the late PP Stephen Makete.

The handover of the splint to Luyanda, at Forest Town School has been moved to 23^rd September 2015, from 10:30 to 12:30.

The youth committee invite interested members to join them at this occasion.

Please contact Jean Bernardo.

From the Anns

To : THE BOARD OF THE ROTARY CLUB OF ROSEBANK

On behalf of the Rosebank Rotary Anns I would like to thank you very much for the generous donation of R25 000 for our participation in the Art Festival. 

Thank you, too, for the opportunity of sharing in the fun, the fellowship and the chance to make a difference, and the acknowledgement of the role of the Rotary Anns in the greater family of the Rotary Club of Rosebank. It is much appreciated. We look forward to many more years of rewarding team work.

Again, our thanks and appreciation.

Shirley Eustace

President

Rotary Anns of Rosebank.

POLIO: THE ROTARIAN CONVERSATION WITH ASEEFA BHUTTO ZARDARI

Illustration by Berto Martinez

Before her family was forced into exile, before her mother was assassinated, before her father became president, Aseefa Bhutto Zardari was known for something simpler, but in some ways equally powerful: In 1994, she became the first child in Pakistan to receive the oral polio vaccine, as part of the country’s first National Immunization Day. Benazir Bhutto, then prime minister, gave the drops to her daughter herself, a compelling endorsement of the nascent campaign.

“I was a baby at the time, so I don’t remember it,” says Bhutto Zardari, now 22. “But the moment was an inspirational one for the nation, and encouraged women to believe that polio drops were and are safe.”

In 1988, at age 35, Benazir Bhutto became the first woman elected to lead a Muslim country. She was assassinated in 2007, just months after she had returned to Pakistan after almost nine years in exile. But Aseefa Bhutto Zardari – whose father, Asif Ali Zardari, served as president of Pakistan from 2008 to 2013 – is carrying on her mother’s work. As a Rotary polio ambassador, she meets with officials, visits schools, and talks with families of health workers who were killed while working to vaccinate children.

Bhutto Zardari has raised the profile of the polio eradication campaign in Pakistan and around the world. She writes about the topic for the Huffington Post and joined Rotary International General Secretary John Hewko onstage at the 2012 Global Citizen Festival in New York City’s Central Park. On Twitter, with more than half a million followers, she encourages people in Pakistan to support ending polio and chastises those who stand in the way. In April, she invited two other prominent women in Pakistani politics to join her in the polio eradication effort, a move that garnered media coverage across the country.

In 1994, the year Bhutto Zardari received those first drops of vaccine, Pakistan had an estimated 35,000 cases of polio. As of 10 June, 24 cases had been reported in the country in 2015. Bhutto Zardari, who is completing a master’s degree in global health and development in London, talked to us about ending polio in Pakistan, her future in politics, and prospects for peace in her country.

THE ROTARIAN: Recently in Pakistan, some parents who refused the polio vaccine for their children have been arrested. Are those arrests justified?

BHUTTO ZARDARI: There is a great ethical debate about whether the arrests are justified. Is it the right of the citizen to refuse care? Is it the right of the child to have the best health care? Personally, I don’t believe arresting people is the best solution. Parents want the best for their children, and they are trying to ensure their safety. Educating the parents and persuading them to let their children have the polio drops is more powerful and, although time consuming, will be more successful in the long term.

TR: You’re active on Twitter. If you could use more than 140 characters on Twitter to send a message to parents who choose not to vaccinate, what would you say?

BHUTTO ZARDARI: In the media environment today, so much of our lives and what we seek to do is oversimplified, often stripped of meaning and context. Much of what I say on Twitter about this topic [of vaccination] is directed at people in positions of influence who are abusing their position by taking an anti-vaccination approach, rather than at individual parents. I know that the majority of parents, even those refusing vaccinations, have their children’s best interests at heart.

To parents who have held off on vaccinating: Do not take rumors as truth or let people use health as a political or religious weapon. Your children’s lives are at risk, and by giving them two small drops, you can ensure they will avoid the suffering that polio can cause. Speak to families who have experienced polio personally. Talk to the polio workers and learn from them.

If we had to reduce it to a campaign slogan, I would say to those parents: Don’t rob your children of a future they deserve. Give them a chance. Let them get the polio vaccine.

TR: What is the future of the polio eradication campaign in Pakistan? How will you continue your involvement?

BHUTTO ZARDARI: There is a serious disconnect between the significant and targeted efforts put in by the provincial governments and the hands-off approach taken by the federal government. To ensure the best chance of success, we need collaboration with the federal and provincial governments in order to have a united front. Along with this, we need to focus on training more lady health workers [a program launched by Benazir Bhutto that has trained more than 100,000 women to provide community health services] and polio workers. These health care workers will be able to use their expertise to support other areas of our health service in the future, and we need to plan for this. I am committed to a polio-free Pakistan, but I’m also committed to a healthier Pakistan overall. For now my focus is on polio, but I hope to carry on my training to get involved in other areas of health care.

This campaign needs more resources, especially in the environment of fragile security that so many of our heroic vaccinators face. The PPP [Pakistan People’s Party, founded by Bhutto Zardari’s grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto] recently proposed that donors fund a security health corps to protect vaccinators as they attempt to reach children in dangerous areas. This is crucial to protect the lives of our vaccinators and to ensure the success of the program. I often hear of vaccinators returning from high-security-risk areas, such as Quetta, who were unable to reach children because of the danger. The conventional methods of taking the program forward may not be enough if we do not simultaneously address the security concerns.

TR: Will you go into politics?

BHUTTO ZARDARI: I have always been in politics. Since I was a child, I have been surrounded by it. With a mother who was prime minister twice and a father who served as president, it is impossible to avoid politics. I am keen to make my own mark and ensure that I have the skills to best serve Pakistan in the future. That is why I have dedicated so much effort to my education, specifically focusing on health care and humanitarian concerns.

TR: What was it like to grow up in exile?

BHUTTO ZARDARI: I spent a good portion of my life in Dubai. It was difficult to see the struggles my mother faced being away from our home. At the same time, it was inspiring to see how she was able to maintain a presence in Pakistan while in exile. My father was in jail, and she was petitioning leaders worldwide to help bring democracy back to Pakistan. Despite all of that, she always made the effort to help my siblings and me with our homework, and attend our school functions and plays. We were always hoping to return home, but she made sure we never felt lost.

TR: Your grandfather was executed under a military dictatorship, your father was jailed, your mother was killed. What drives you to risk your own security by staying involved? Why not walk away?

BHUTTO ZARDARI: Walking away is not an option. My mother, father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brother, and sister have all committed themselves to serving Pakistan. They have all believed that they could have a positive impact. While to many, they are simply political figures, they are my family. I trust them, and they have shaped who I am. I will carry on the cause that they have believed in, and that many of them have died for, to honor them and to serve my country.

TR: What prevents you from focusing on the tragedy you have experienced?

BHUTTO ZARDARI: While there has been great tragedy in my life, I am also aware that I have been given great opportunities. I have been able to study, I have been able to travel, and I have been able to create friendships with people from all over the world. I have also been blessed with an incredible brother and sister and a wonderful father. The support I get from my family is a great comfort.

TR: One of your mother’s legacies was inspiring women and girls, including Malala Yousafzai, who calls your mother her role model. What will it take to develop more female leaders in Pakistan?

BHUTTO ZARDARI: Just as I have been blessed to have such an inspiring mother, I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to get to know Malala. She is exactly right in identifying how we will empower women to take the lead in Pakistan in the future: education. We must ensure that women and girls have access to quality education so they are able to obtain leadership positions. At the same time, we must make sure that men and boys are being educated about equality.

TR: Will your country and the region ever see peace?

BHUTTO ZARDARI: I have great faith that one day Pakistan will have peace. I pray for the day when people can look beyond the bombs and the bullets and see my beautiful country, where the people have so much talent and bravery. It is a region in deep transition. One can only hope that the challenges of rapid population growth in South Asia will motivate leaders to strive harder for peace, and that we will be able to work with our neighboring countries to form a more stable and safe environment for our families.

Welcome Merle and Steven! Professor Steven Friedman and Sunday Lunch,

The Ramble

The Board has a number of objections to the Ramble in its present form and feels that much of it conflicts with the proposed Club Website.  In order to comply with the Club's requirements the Pages have been deleted as they will be incorporated into the website.  It was also felt that The Ramble appeared too early in the week and here I have compromised by bringing it out on Tuesday as I feel anything later is too late.

Last Week was a business meeting it saw the induction of Merle Langenegger and Steven Anastopoulos, who has transferred from Orange Grove Club, into our Club.

Sponsor, Les Short, Merle Langenegger & President Neville Howes

Steven Anastopoulos is the first of the former Orange Grove Rotarians to be welcomed into the Rotary Club of Rosebank Johannesburg.












Visiting Rotarian Rainer Arntzen from Dortmund exchanges banners with President Neville.








This Week
Our Guest Speaker is Professor Steven Friedman, the Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy which is a joint Rhodes/UJ initiative.  He was National Head of the Independent Electoral Commission Information Analysis Department during the 1994 election.  He is a well-known newspaper columnist and political analyst and he will be talking to us about the New Student Radicalism and University Response.

Sunday Lunch


Last Sunday a number of club members and friends had Sunday lunch at La Madeleine in Pretoria.  The food and the company was exceptional.

Here's the group with Chef-patron Daniel Leusch.

Oh...and here's another Group

KNOCKING DOWN LANGUAGE BARRIERS

Anna Wieczorek, a member of the Rotary Club of Warsaw City, teaches English to elementary school students.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Anna Wieczorek

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Russian was the predominant second language offered in Polish schools, leaving tens of thousands of Polish emigrants without the English skills they needed.  

That has changed over the last 25 years. English proficiency drastically improved after the government reformed its education system in 1991. The country overhauled its teaching curriculum and materials and introduced English as the primary foreign language. As of 2013, Poland ranks 8th in the world in English proficiency.

However, one segment of the population isn’t reaping the benefits of the improved curriculum. Thousands of students in poor rural villages attend schools that don’t have the adequate resources or well trained personnel to properly teach English, putting them at a disadvantage in today’s global economy and labor market, says Anna Wieczorek, a Rotary Club of Warszawa City member and author of Poland’s English curriculum for grades 1-3.

“The budgets of state schools in rural areas are limited compared to those in the cities and private schools,” Wieczorek says. “Teachers in these schools are often underpaid and undertrained. Consequently, the level of teaching English is far from meeting the appropriate standards.”

Added to that, she says, their students face social exclusion. “They lack the self-confidence and communication skills that students in the city, who have access to modern technology, might have,” she says. “The inability to learn English -- let alone acquire an appropriate education -- early on in their lives makes it difficult for them to evolve and develop further in life.”

Many of the students come from homes where unemployment and alcoholism are common, according to a report by the CASE Foundation, prepared for the Warsaw Delegation of the European Commission. Many turn their attention to the streets and crime instead of education, the report says.

ROTARY GIVES RURAL COMMUNITIES SUPPORT

The Warszawa City members the Rotary Club of Berlin-Luftbrücke, Germany, and the Rotary Club of Milano Nord, Italy, are trying to change this trend. A $45,000 Rotary global grant project is supporting English and other foreign language education for more than 1,200 underprivileged students in 10 rural communities. The clubs collaborated with Good Start, a program that provides equipment, software, and an interactive e-learning platform for afterschool education centers, as well as training for tutors.

Eleven centers are now equipped with computers, interactive white boards, projectors, multimedia, and printed learning materials. The three clubs, along with the Rotary Club of Edmonton Downtown, Alberta, Canada, have furnished 12 other afterschool centers over the last three years in conjunction with previous Rotary Foundation grants, bringing the total to 23. Each dayroom is supervised by a local Rotary member.

Before the project, the centers would generally be empty after school. They only provided desks and chairs. With the new technology, interactive classes, and motivated instructors, the students now have an “attractive way to learn,” Wieczorek says.

Wieczorek, who also authors children’s books, writes the e-learning software and curriculum. “We are not only teaching English, but we’re improving their reading, writing, and computer skills,” she says. “They have a safe place to spend their free time after school. This makes a big difference in their daily lives and will help them define their future.”

According to a 2013 global language study from Education First, countries with higher levels of English proficiency also have stronger economies and their citizens have higher per capita income levels and quality of life. More and more multinational companies are mandating English as their common corporate language.

The study also suggests that because English is the predominant language in business, higher education, and politics, English proficiency is important to succeeding in a globalized society. And low proficiency in English may be connected with weak integration into the global economy.

Gerhart Ernst, a Berlin-Luftbrücke Rotary member, says since his club was chartered in 1979, members have focused their efforts on supporting young people from disadvantaged homes. Their partnership with the Polish club is something they are especially proud of.

Ernst says his club wants to mimic this project in areas in Germany with a large number of refugees from Syria and Lebanon.

In March, members of the Warszawa City club visited one of the centers while an English class was in session. “It brought tears to my eyes to see these children so happy and engaged,” says Wieczorek. “These kids have dreams about getting away from the poverty and affliction. We’re doing all we can to make these dreams come true.”

A Business Meeting & a Wine Tasting

This Week

It's a Business Meeting, a report back of the week's Board Meeting. There's not much to say other than to make sure you ask questions relating to reports.
I know that the meeting is too short for a proper report back and response from every committee but as club members the Board is accountable to us and we should keep the Board on its toes.

Letter to the Editor

SIR: I haven’t got a computer, but I was

told about Facebook and Twitter and am

trying to make friends outside Facebook

and Twitter while applying the same

principles.

Every day, I walk down the street and

tell passers-by what I have eaten, how I

feel, what I have done the night before

and what I will do for the rest of the

day. I give them pictures of my wife, my

daughter, my dog and me gardening and

on holiday, spending time by the pool.

I also listen to their conversations, tell

them I “like” them and give them my

opinion on every subject that interests

me… whether it interests them or not.

And it works. I already have four

people following me; two police officers,

a social worker and a psychiatrist.

Peter White, Holbrook, Derbyshire

David Bradshaw is appealing for more volunteers for the Firlands Fete on the 29th August. 

The Bookstall is our responsibility and we are very short of people to man or woman it.

Contact him on David@Travelvision.co.za

Last Week

Sometimes things go wrong and this week it was the photos so instead of seeing Tutty Faber in action at Rotary you will have to look at him in action as President of the Old Edwardians' Society presenting the Sportsman of the Year Award to Stephen Cook last year.
I had no idea that Tutty was such a great sportsman in the past.  So keen that he neglected his studies and took longer than usual to get his degree.  Many thanks, Tutty, for such an interesting talk.

Wine Tasting with Villiera

We have arranged a wine tasting at Wanderers at 18h00 on Thursday 17 September. It will be held in Bowlers B, where we have our Friday lunch meetings.

We have not organised a planned meal, but invite those who would like to do so to get together in Chariots Bar afterwards and order         from the extensive bar menu.

Villiera is a very well known Stellenbosch family estate, owned by the Grier family, producing excellent, but reasonably priced wines.

         Sauvignon Blanc       4 stars                     R61.50

         Chenin Blanc            3.5 stars                  R48.00

         Down to Earth Red  3 stars                      R45.00

         Merlot                         3 stars                      R61.50

         Cabernet Sauvignon  3 stars                      R72.00

If you would like more information on the estate, the website is www.villiera.com .

The tasting will be limited to 25 people maximum. Please let Mark Franklin know if you plan to attend by Friday September 11th (sextant@mweb.co.za). We need numbers to plan for glasses and the number of bottles for tasting.

Order forms and a card machine will be available for you to purchase any of their wines.

NIGERIA SEES NO WILD POLIO CASES FOR ONE YEAR

Despite historic milestone, country still faces hurdles before being declared polio-free.

Today marks one year since Nigeria last reported a polio case caused by wild poliovirus, putting the country on the brink of eradicating the paralyzing disease.

The last case was reported on 24 July 2014 in the northern state of Kano. If no cases are reported in the coming weeks, the World Health Organization is expected to remove Nigeria from the list of countries where polio is endemic, leaving just two: Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Nigeria is the last polio-endemic country in Africa. The continent is poised to reach its own first full year without any illness from the virus on 11 August.

“Every Rotarian in the world should be proud of this achievement,” says Rotary International President K.R. Ravindran. “We made history. We have set Africa on course for a polio-free future. But we have not yet reached our goal of a polio-free world. Raising funds and awareness and advocating with your government are more crucial than ever.”

Progress in Nigeria has come from many measures, including strong domestic and international financing, the commitment of thousands of health workers, and new strategies that reached children who had not been immunized earlier because of a lack of security in the northern states.

“Rotary’s commitment has been the number one reason for the recent success in Nigeria,” says Dr. Tunji Funsho, chair of Rotary’s Nigeria PolioPlus Committee. “We have infected political leaders with this commitment. The government has demonstrated this with political support and financial and human resources. And that went down the line from the federal level, to the state, to the local governments.”

Nigeria has increased its domestic funding for polio eradication almost every year since 2012 and has allocated $80 million for the effort this year.

Funsho also applauds religious leaders who championed the vaccination efforts to families in their communities.

Despite the historic gains in Nigeria, health experts are cautious about declaring victory. Funsho says the Global Polio Eradication Initative partners must strengthen routine immunization especially in hard-to-reach areas, in addition to boosting sensitive surveillance to prevent resurgence of the disease. If no new cases are reported in the next two years, Nigeria, along with the entire Africa region, will be certified polio-free.

“The virus can be introduced from anywhere where it is still endemic, particularly now in Afghanistan and Pakistan, into areas that haven’t had polio in years,” Funsho says. “It is important we keep the immunity level in Nigeria to at least 90 percent.”

For instance, Syria experienced a sudden outbreak of the disease when 35 cases were reported in December 2013. None had been reported there since 1999. “Immunizations become imperative for history not to repeat itself in Nigeria,” says Funsho.

In June, Rotary announced $19 million in grants for continued polio eradication activities in Africa, including almost $10 million for Nigeria. Since 1985, when Rotary launched PolioPlus, the program that supports the organization’s polio eradication efforts, its worldwide monetary contributions to the cause have exceeded $1.4 billion.

“We’ve come a long way and have never been so close to eradicating polio in Nigeria and around the world, but it’s not a time to fully celebrate,” says Funsho. “We have some grueling years ahead of us before WHO can certify Nigeria and Africa polio-free.”