Category Archives: Eradicating polio

Climbing mountains for those who can’t

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Amélie Perfetti, Kevin Faure, and Christophe Terrand during one stage of the climb.
Learn how you can help spread awareness on World Polio Day.

By Amélie Perfetti, Rotary Club of Saint-Dizier, France

A few years ago, two members of Rotaract from Paris, France, launched the Climbing Like Ibrahim project. Mini and Rachid had a friend in common, Ibrahim, a polio survivor, who always used to say that for him, going to school was like climbing mountains every day.

They set about challenging themselves to climb mountains for Ibrahim to raise funds for ending polio, so that no more children would have to “climb mountains” to go to school. They began by climbing Mont Blanc, in the French Alps. Since then, several other efforts have included an ascent of Kilimanjaro, the Inca route in Peru, the crossing of Corsica via the GR20 and the tour of Queyras in the Hautes Alpes.

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Disability as a driving force for success

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By Badara Dafé, Rotary Club of Dakar Soleil, Senegal

Badara Dafé

Polio is a very coercive and disabling disease. But as a polio survivor, I’ve been able to draw extra motivation from the disabilities the disease left me with. It gave me a taste for effort and hard work. I was able to turn what seemed like a threat into an opportunity.

I contracted polio at the age of one in Dakar, Senegal. The fever lasted for days, and paralysis set in, especially on the right side of my legs. Although the doctors initially thought I had malaria, it ended up being polio.

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Why I ride to end polio

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Gary Bren on his bike.
Gary Bren during a previous year’s Ride to End Polio in El Tour de Tucson.

By Gary Bren, past governor of District 5650 (Iowa, Nebraska, USA)

For more than two decades, my wife and I have been committed to Rotary’s effort to eradicate polio. The roots of my involvement go back to events before I was born. I have two older sisters, and after my second sister was born, my mom had two miscarriages. My parents really wanted a third child, so the doctors prescribed a drug that would help my mom carry a child full-term. 

I was born with a few side effects from that drug. The first – a single abdominal kidney – was discovered at the time of my birth. The second, I didn’t discover until years later. In the 1990s my wife and I were having trouble conceiving a child, and we found out the problem was related to the drug my mother had taken.

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Iron lung’s third life builds awareness for End Polio Now

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An iron lung sits inside a mobile exhibit with other decorations around it
The Rotary Iron Lung Education Exhibit (RILEE) makes a stop at Rotary International World Headquarters in Evanston, Illinois, USA, on World Polio Day, 24 October. Photo by Leann Arthur

By Suzanne Gibson, 2019-20 governor of Rotary District 6440 and a member of the Rotary Club of Barrington Breakfast, Barrington, Illinois

While planning a youth assembly in the fall of 2017, Rotary leaders in my district were looking for a fresh way to connect young people with the story of polio. Their generation is largely unfamiliar with this disease because it has not been endemic in our part of the world for decades. They have little memory, aside from photos in history books, of polio scares and children in iron lungs.

We wanted to explain how Rotary has been working to deliver on the vision of a polio-free world and why. We have reduced the number of cases of polio by 99.9 percent since 1988. But still, as long as polio exists anywhere, it remains a threat. There is no cure, only prevention, through vaccines.

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Living with polio for 70 years

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Lee holds his cane and stands between four members of his club at the summit
Jong-Geun Lee at the summit of a 3,400-foot peak with members of his Rotary club who took turns carrying him on an A-frame on their backs.

By Jong-Geun Lee, District 3730 PolioPlus subcommittee chair and member of the Rotary Club of Wonju, Korea

I was born in a rural village in southern Korea the year after the Korean War ended. I contracted polio when I was 9 months old. I had a fever for several days and both my legs became paralyzed. My parents were teachers but had little knowledge of polio, so they relied on superstition and prayer to confront my illness. It wasn’t until I was two years old that I was finally diagnosed with polio.

I needed crutches to walk but was a cheerful and active child with many friends in the village. My younger brother carried my bag to school and back. If my classroom was not on the ground floor, my fellow students would carry me up the steps on their backs. At the time, we lived in a rented house on a hill near the school. My friends would carry me home. Even with all this help, I would fall often when my walking device became loose or the crutches caught on something, so I devoted myself to studying.

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