Michele Tanner, Rotary district co-ordinator for the Give Every Child a Future project, outlining it to Lake Taupō Rotary members last week. Photo / Laurilee McMichael
Michele Tanner, Rotary district co-ordinator for the Give Every Child a Future project, outlining it to Lake Taupō Rotary members last week. Photo / Laurilee McMichael
It's been 100 years of doing good - and Rotary has a plan to propel itself and its people into the next 100.
The Rotary Clubs of Australia and New Zealand are this year celebrating their first 100 years and plan to mark that milestone by creating a legacy that will propel the service clubs forward into the future.
This month, Lake Taupō Rotary played its part by holding a Rotary 100th Anniversary Dinner which celebrated the contribution of the club in the past and the plans for the future.
District governor Grant Spackman and district co-ordinator Michele Tanner outlined Rotary Australasia's centenary project, Give Every Child a Future, which aims to raise $4.5 million to tackle child survival rates in Pacific Island countries.
The project aims to transforms lives in Pacific Island countries by immunising children against three vaccine-preventable, but potentially deadly diseases, and which kill nearly 1 in 16 children under five in some Pacific nations every year.
Rotary has teamed up with Unicef to take vaccines to 100,000 people to ensure that children and young women are protected from rotavirus, HPV (which causes cervical cancer) and pneumococcal disease.
Lake Taupō Rotary president Mary Legg at the Rotary 100th anniversary dinner in Taupō. Photo / Laurilee McMichael
Rotavirus is a leading cause of death in under-5-year-olds. Pneumococcal disease is a major cause of meningitis and pneumonia in young children and high rates of life-threatening cervical cancer continue to devastate Pacific countries. Despite improvements to vaccine programmes, poorest and hardest to reach children are still being left behind.
The vaccine programme will run in Nauru, Tuvalu, Samoa, Tonga, Cook Islands, Vanuatu, Nuie, Kiribati and Tokelau.
An offshoot of the project is that it will strengthen health systems in those countries and set up cold-chain equipment which will in turn allow other vaccination campaigns, such as Covid-19 vaccines, to be delivered into the future.
This will not be the first time Rotary has teamed up with Unicef. Their joint campaign to eradicate polio worldwide has seen a 99.9 per cent reduction in the disease, with around 30 cases reported annually worldwide.
Many in the Taupō community do not know that the Lake Taupō Rotary Club owns the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge, an event which contributes $1m into the community each year. All event profits are given away to local organisations and local groups - everything from powerchair football to Taupō Foodbank.
That doesn't include the money volunteer groups can raise by helping out on the day of the cycle challenge itself. For many local not for profit groups, the cycle challenge contribution is an important part of their annual fundraising.
The BDO Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge attracts thousands of entrants annually. It is owned by the Lake Taupō Rotary Club, which distributes the profits to community groups. Photo / NZME
In addition, the cycle challenge participants' and supporters' direct spend in the Taupō district economy is between $5 and $6m annually.
Lake Taupō Rotary also supported six international projects during 2019/2020 plus seven of its own local projects, ran a charity golf tournament which raised money for Alzheimer's Taupō and Taupō Neighbourhood Support and helped put on the Starlight Cinema Centre Fireworks Extravaganza, which raised money for five more organisations. It runs the annual Across the Lake Swim and makes a range of scholarships and donations available to local schools.
Rotary clubs have been in Taupō for 64 years and mayor David Trewavas, who made an address to the dinner attendees, said it was unbelievable the contribution Rotarians had made over the years, from projects as diverse as the 1st Taupō Scout den to community groups' free use of the Rotary community van.
"That's just a snapshot of how wonderful this club has been over the years … on behalf of the people of Tūrangi and Taupō, we thank you."
