Rotary Central Melbourne’s 28th Paul Harris Breakfast on November 24 – on Zoom for the first time -- saw 186 attending and a net $8300 raised for the Rotary Foundation. The event was supported by District 9800 and combined with the Business Leaders Breakfast. The guest speaker on Rotary’s campaign against trachoma was Ian Wishart, chief executive of the Fred Hollows Foundation.
Ian sketched his upbringing in PNG where his passion for improvements in poor countries led to emergency relief work for six years and a country director role for three years in Laos before coming to Fred Hollows work.
“Seeing a villager’s vision restored after trachoma is like a miracle every time,” he says. “How many times do you blink per day? 20,000 times. Imagine with every blink you feel the pain of eyelashes scratching across your eyeballs, like a windscreen wiper without the rubbers. Hundreds of thousands face that pain every day, all day.”
Trachoma has been around since the bronze age 6000BC, and is one of the ten most infectious diseases. It was prevalent in Europe, London and Sydney 100 years ago but now eliminated in advanced countries. But it still occurs in the third world and sadly, in remote Australian Aboriginal communities. Rotary has been tackling it there since 2016.
Generally, women suffer from it at nearly twice the prevalence compared with men because of their time with close family at home. The campaigning remedy is called SAFE, S for surgery, A for antibiotics, F for facial cleanliness and E for improved environment.
Surgery can be a simple straightening of eyelashes in the village itself. In Ethiopia these simple steps have cut the risk of blindness for 20m people. Globally Rotary has helped health workers deliver 100m doses of antiobiotics, supporting 213,000 surgeries and helping to educate 4.2m kids.
WHO reported this year a 91% cut in trachoma prevalence in the past 18 years, and those at risk falling from 1.5b to 142m. Countries like Nepal, Myanmar and China are now trachoma-free and Ian’s foundation is working to get Pacific island nations trachoma free.
Fred Hollows himself was appalled in the 1970s to learn trachoma was in Aboriginal communities with little remediation work. His team in two years visited 465 communities with 27,000 people.
Rotary, led by Rotary Melbourne, began its End Trachoma project in 2016 and has raised $1m for it. Rotary Melbourne sponsors two water trailers encouraging kids in APY lands to wash their faces regularly.
Ian said the Fred Hollows Foundation was “incredibly grateful” for Rotary’s support since early times. “There’s still a job to do to ‘kick trachoma into the bin of history’,” he concluded.
Thereafter PDG Murray Verso spoke on Rotary Foundation’s continued successes and with DG Philip gave Club Recognitions and acknowledged past and new Peace Fellows and global scholars. Last year D9800 spent $400,000 on Foundation programs, Murray said. District Governor Philip Archer promoted the Business Leaders Breakfasts for January 26 . For February 16 the next breakfast features Graeme Samuel of RC Brighton.
The raffle raised $2250 (less $250 costs) and the silent auction raised $2800, thanks to great work by Rob Hines. Gerard Hogan won the $250 gift voucher and Nev Taylor won the $100 Bunnings voucher. George Mackey won three bottles of shiraz and Pam Robinson won a copy of Roy Garrett’s beautiful book on school projects in Laos. #
