Rotary Ireland seeking new members from Co Kildare following successful trip to India helping immunize children against polio disease

By Kim O'Leary

An inspirational Newbridge local is helping to eradicate the life-threatening disease of polio with a recent visit to India to help immunise children, with new members also being sought to benefit the community of Newbridge.

Sean Dunne who is originally from Dublin and his wife Eleanor Swan from a well-known Newbridge family moved back to Newbridge over 20 years ago. Sean joined the local Rotary Club to support the club in helping the local community as well as international projects.

Sean is also the International Chairperson for Rotary Ireland, and the aim of Rotary International is to tackle some of the most pressing issues in communities both in Ireland and further abroad such as preventing and eradicating diseases, promoting peace, providing access to clean water and sanitation, enhancing maternal and child health, improving basic education and literacy and helping communities develop.

Since 1979 Rotary International has worked tirelessly to help eradicate polio in developing counties and earlier this year Sean and other volunteers visited India to help immunize children.

Speaking to KildareNow about this once-in-a-lifetime journey, Sean explained that he was interested in helping others and that he wanted to see how the disease is still affecting people in India. He said: “As the International Chairperson for Rotary Ireland, I wanted to see how it is for these children suffering from this terrible disease, and myself and other rotarians went over to help vaccinate children under the age of five. In Ireland we have the vaccines but with a population of 1.3 billion people it’s not very accessible to them in India.”

Sean travelled to India with Rotarians from across Ireland and the UK in a bid to immunise millions of children as part of Rotary’s Polio Plus campaign, and Rotary are an integral part of a worldwide team known as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative which they spearhead along with World Health Organisation, UNICEF and national governments.

Sean said: “Polio is a terrible disease, but one that can be eradicated with a simple and harmless vaccine. It may seem that Polio is something of the past but until it is eradicated world-wide it is still only a plane ride away from any of us.”

Speaking of the trip, Sean described how they visited clinics to help vaccinate children in collaboration with other medical professionals both from the local community and internationally. The group also managed to visit some of India’s most breath-taking attractions including the Taj Mahal in the Indian city of Agra, one of the oldest and most photograohed ancient burial tombs in the world.

Sean said: “The trip was a great experience and that Rotary visits India every year going right across the country to Calcutta and Agra. This trip was truly humbling, I met many beautiful people, both fellow Rotarians and their partners or their children, along with local people who despite the language barrier made us feel welcome and were clearly delighted that their children were getting the vaccine against this disease.”

According to Sean, there is a noticeable reduction in the number of children contracting polio with the figures dropping each year. “Even if the last case of polio is identified this year, a huge amount of work will remain to ensure that it stays gone. Vaccinations will continue and need to be funded. We are so close. We’ve got a 99.9 percent reduction in polio. But we’re not there yet,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Rotary Club of Newbridge is hoping to recruit more members to join them with over 2000 Rotarians in 73 clubs nationwide. Sean said: “We do a lot in the local community here in Newbridge, in the last 6 months we raised funds for the Dining Rome who provide meals for the homeless in Newbridge and we’ve also recently helped with St. Brigid’s Hospice on the Curragh, and Sensational Kids in Kildare town. Last Year Rotary clubs from across the country also helped to refurbish the parents’ living quarters at Crumlin Hospital to help them as they stay with their sick children.”

He added: “At the moment we have two programmes that we are focusing on; Just One Life and Bikes For Africa. Just One Life is aimed at young people living in County Kildare the objective of the Just One Life programme is to save young drivers lives. This is done by first responders demonstrating the common causes of accidents to 15-17 year old students in a practical manner which they can understand. It provides much needed food-for-thought for these drivers of the future and seeks to influence the choices they will make as young drivers, in the age group accepted as being most at risk of having a serious traffic collision. The programme is supported by Kildare County Council, The A&E Naas Hospital, the Gardaí Siochana and Fire Bigrade.”

Sean added: “There’s also the Bikes For Africa programme where we are asking for old bikes which are refurbished in Loughan House and sent to children in African countries, and we’re appealing for more bikes to be donated to us.”

For more information on the Rotary Club of Newbridge visit www.rotary.ie or www.endpolionow.org