Polio Ball arrives in Thika

The Rotary Club of Thika received the Kick Out Polio ball on March 17, which is continuing its journey across Africa. This doubles as part of the build up to the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, and raising awareness on polio.
The ball, with signatures of prominent personalities, started its journey on February 23 in Cape Town when the Pan-African “Kick Polio Out of Africa” awareness campaign was launched with the symbolic kicking of a ball signed by Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Tutu had polio as a child, and has joined Rotary’s campaign as polio goodwill ambassador.
From Cape Town, one of the host cities to the 2010 World Cup, the ball has travelled through southern African nations and entered Kenya from Uganda en route to Ethiopia.
“We have to eradicate this life threatening, and cruel disease. This is part of the final push that is needed to stop polio in its tracks, especially in Africa,” says Joe Thiga, President of the Rotary Club of Thika while receiving the ball.
It will go through 22 polio-affected countries to Egypt to reach the Rotary International Convention in Montréal, Canada in June. The journey is being underwritten by DHL Express.
Since Rotary began its fight against polio in 1985, the incidence of the disease has been reduced by 99 percent. In Africa, only Nigeria remains polio-endemic, but the disease still affects children in many other high-risk countries, emphasizing the need to protect all African children against polio.
This ball is part of a challenge by former South African President Nelson Mandela, who in his 1996 address at the African Unity (AU) Summit, that formally kicked off the “Kick Polio out of Africa” campaign said: “We are calling on the continent's football players to bring their enormous influence to this campaign. Only unified efforts which galvanise whole societies towards these goals will succeed in kicking this virus, that looks so much like a football, out of Africa and eventually, out of the world.”
Polio eradication has been Rotary International’s top priority for more than two decades. The international humanitarian service organization is a spearheading partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, along with the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF.
Rotary recently pledged to raise US$200 million to match $355 million in challenge grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All of the resulting $555 million will be spent in support of eradication activities.