By Ryan Hyland and Erin Biba

Why Ending Polio Matters

Why ending polio matters On World Polio Day, 24 October, Rotary will host a live-streamed event including an update on our campaign to eradicate polio. We are 99 percent of the way to ending this crippling disease. Learn why it is critical that we finish the job, and what you can do to help. Add your voice to our live-streamed World Polio Day event Get the latest news on polio in our roundup for Rotary Voices Read how business partnerships are paying big dividends Browse photos of an immunization day on Rotary Showcase, or share your own

by Bill Robinson, one of the event organizers.

Thanks to the ten Rotarians and one spouse who volunteered to help set up and take down tables and chairs for the Reconciliation and Dialogue Workshop. The work was light and easy but the event itself was “heavy” in a most positive way.

Most of us feel that we are aware of the inter-generational impact Residential Schools have had but when you get to hear stories from Residential School survivors, especially the one who talk about the impact the sexual abuse he experience has had not only on himself  but his children and grandchildren, we understand the impact at a much deeper level.

Every one of our volunteers talked about the impact the experience had on them personally. Agreeing to take on this volunteer assignment was definitely a win/win opportunity for us.

Several of us are hoping that we can arrange to have one of the survivors speak to our club in the near future.

Click here to go to article in Nanaimo Daily News about the student session on Thursday.

  Bill, Bob M., Bob L. & Joan Ethier with Paul Harris awards presented by Colin.  Photo by Don Dempson.

   Doug & Don with speaker Bill Tuele.

By Daniela Garcia  Rotary News  19-Mar-2014 

Rotaractors at the Presidential New Generations Conference in Chennai, India, organized the world’s biggest high-five. A total of 7,084 people participated in the challenge, which was recognized by Guinness World Records.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Ramkumar Raju

Ramkumar Raju of India and Winfred Karungi of Uganda have never met, but they have a great deal in common. They're both Rotaract club members and district Rotaract representatives. They're also promising young community leaders who helped plan successful Presidential New Generations Conferences in their countries.

                     Ohio Rotary member Amy Kaspar and science teacher Bartholomew Meena embrace during Kaspar’s visit to Tanzania in 2009. The meeting sparked a service project that is educating villagers near Mount Kilimanjaro how to adapt to climate change.

Littered with old National Geographic magazines, a model volcano, and a solar cooker, Bartholomew Meena’s crammed science room in Machame, Tanzania, captured Amy Kaspar’s heart at first glance.

“He created all the science projects we had from our childhood in one room,” recalls Kaspar, a former Rotary Scholar who’s now a member of the Rotary Club of Capital Square in Ohio. Within those projects, she saw Meena’s passion for his environment and a wealth of unexplored opportunities, particularly the chance to collaborate and study the environmental impact of Mount Kilimanjaro’s melting glaciers.

“I had attended several lectures recently at Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center,” Kaspar says. “The thought hit me, shouldn’t the people who live around the mountain know about what is happening and prepare for the changes?”

Kaspar spent the next four years connecting Meena with the center, which has been doing cutting edge climate change research. Kaspar’s desire to help Machame matched the center’s goal of providing more research to local communities where it could do more good. And by utilizing Rotary’s network, she was able to bring Rotary members in Ohio and Machame into the collaboration.

Together, they would teach communities at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro how to adapt to the changing temperatures and precipitation patterns.

“Tanzania is an area where we haven’t been able to give back as much,” says Jason Cervenac, educational outreach coordinator for the Byrd center, “and an educational initiative seemed to be an obvious approach.”

The center is also providing Meena with material to write a new curriculum in Swahili, which Rotary members will help publish, distribute, and promote. Additional plans are in the works to use posters to educate the community, hold seminars and community workshops, and fund study exchanges between Tanzania and Ohio.

None of this would have been possible without the Rotary infrastructure, Kaspar says.

“It’s all about the personal relationships you establish,” she adds. “Rotary has changed who I am, and now I want to do what I can to help change the lives of others for the better.”

Kaspar’s path to Rotary began in 1993,when she studied architecture and international development at Oxford Brooks University in Oxford, England, through a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship. There she met her host family, Jane and Peter Jones of the Rotary Club of Haddenham and District.

“Amy arrived in a wheelchair with a bicycle. Need I say more?” says Jane, who with her husband has hosted more than 20 scholars. “We found it difficult to control her exuberance and enthusiasm and keep her plans grounded, but that isn’t a criticism.”

The Jones family invited Kaspar to attend club activities and take part in service projects. A decade later, they put her in touch with Rotary members in Tanzania, where she would go on to work with the relatively new Rotary Club of Machame.

“I’m here today because my host dad in England would never let me off the hook and always made sure I got involved in stuff,” she says. “Service is now a part of who I am. It’s a part of my genetic makeup.”

Global carbon footprints are shown as current emissions, per capita emissions, emissions intensity per unit of GDP, and cumulative emissions.

Click here  to see the maps.

We map the starkly different views of the climate crisis that have led to stalemate in our newly revised interactive, Four Ways to Look at Global Carbon Footrpints.  (See related “Quiz: What You Don’t Know About Climate Change Science.”)

Our map zeroes in on just a small number of nations–14–but they happen to be responsible for 80 percent of the world’s carbon emissions. The numbers come from the World Resources Institute’s excellent climate data navigator, CAIT 2.0, one of the few data sources that enables apples-to-apples comparisons of emissions from around the world.

Each of the four viewpoints in our map is accurate, as far as it goes. But each alone is inadequate. Like the legendary blind men surveying the elephant, nations that contemplate the massive global warming problem from only one vantage point will end up groping at a portion of the truth and griping at each other, missing the whole picture. (See related, “Q&A With Philippines Climate Envoy Who’s Fasting After Super Typhoon Haiyan.”)

For the United States and most other industrialized nations, the operative view is “Current Emissions,” and the alarming reality that China’s carbon output has grown more than 40 percent, and India’s, by 25 percent, since our last version of the map, based on 2005 data. (See related “Pictures: A Rare Look Inside China’s Energy Machine.”) Any treaty that is designed like the Kyoto accord, with binding carbon emissions cuts only for the richest countries, will fail to stem the rising threat of Asia’s rapidly mounting emissions.

The U.S. and Europe often point to the climate progress they’ve made by focusing on what we call “Intensity,” on our map, their relatively low greenhouse gas emissions per unit of economic output. Indeed, carbon intensity has fallen dramatically in wealthy nations over the past few decades. But no nation is an island, and these efficiency improvements are in part because energy-intensive manufacturing has moved to the developing world, often to make goods that are being shipped, bought and consumed in the developed world. And even if all nations were reducing their intensity, it would matter little if absolute emissions are rising at their current rate.

Developing nations frequently rebuff calls that they face binding emissions cuts, pointing to their low “Per Capita” emissions, compared to the giant footprint of the United States and other wealthy countries. Several years ago, India in particular made relatively low per capita emissions the cornerstone of its climate policy, but the trends here too are alarming. India’s per capita carbon emissions are up 12 percent since our previous map, China’s are up 40 percent and now nearly on par with those of Europe. The atmosphere will be overwhelmed if per capita emissions continue to grow at this rate in nations with large and growing populations, and yet these countries still face the very real and necessary challenge of extending electricity to millions of people living in poverty and without access to the grid. (See “Related: Five Surprising Facts About Energy Poverty.”)

But most of the debate in Warsaw has centered around the title on our map called “Cumulative Emissions.” When measured since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere by the United States and Europe far surpass those of any single developing nation. If, as the scientists now say, the world has a limited “carbon budget” and more than half of it already has been spent, developing nations point out that the United States and Europe have burned up more than their fair shares of fossil fuel on their paths to economic progress.

Cumulative emissions are about more than emissions, they are now about money. Wealthy nations have long promised to establish a fund to bolster the defenses of those at the greatest risk of sea level rise and extreme weather. Developing countries now want to see that funding plus an additional mechanism for the nations with the largest cumulative emissions to compensate the poorer, vulnerable nations for “loss and damage” due to climate events. They could point to one example playing out in real time, the tragedy unfolding in the Philippines after Super Typhoon Haiyan.

But cumulative emissions, too, are changing. Just prior to the Warsaw talks, the United Nations Environmental Program released its “emissions gap” report, showing how nations’ current commitments on climate change fall well short of what’s needed to curb the risk of catastrophic global warming. UNEP noted that until about the year 2000, it was clear that the wealthy nations’ historic emissions far outweighed those of the poor countries. Since then, emissions have grown so rapidly in the developing world since then that the balance has changed significantly. Now, developed nations and developing nations’ share roughly 50-50 responsibility for the atmosphere’s cumulative carbon load since 1850.

Recent research on cumulative emissions cited by the UN, by the Joint Research Center of the European Commission and PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency,  shows how tricky a single viewpoint of emissions can be. Some have suggested for example, discounting some past emissions to account for technological progress. The authors point out that the United Kingdom, for instance, had a long history of high emissions due to the use of inefficient steam engines. But nations developing today don’t need to repeat that history; they can employ much more advanced technologies and emit far less carbon for the same level of economic output.

Another way to look at cumulative emissions, the authors point out, is to grant each nation a “deduction,” so to speak, for “basic needs.” In this approach, nations would not be held responsible for the carbon emissions necessary to meet the basic needs of their people.

Discounting past emissions to account for technological progress would tend to lessen responsibility for wealthy nations, while deductions for “basic needs” would lessen the pressure on poorer and developing nations. But the recent research on cumulative emissions underscores the point of our interactive map, the importance of looking at the world’s climate crisis globally and from many different points of view, and not just from the poor frame of reference circumscribed by any one nation’s borders.

CANADA, March 6, 2013  Recognizing Canadian women who are working to empower the next generation of women and girls

5 March 2014 | GENEVA - WHO is launching a public consultation on its draft guideline on sugars intake. When finalized, the guideline will provide countries with recommendations on limiting the consumption of sugars to reduce public health problems like obesity and dental caries (commonly referred to as tooth decay).

Comments on the draft guideline will be accepted via the WHO web site from 5 through 31 March 2014. Anyone who wishes to comment must submit a declaration of interests. An expert peer-review process will happen over the same period. Once the peer-review and public consultation are completed, all comments will be reviewed, the draft guidelines will be revised if necessary and cleared by WHO’s Guidelines Review Committee before being finalized.

New draft guideline proposals

WHO’s current recommendation, from 2002, is that sugars should make up less than 10% of total energy intake per day. The new draft guideline also proposes that sugars should be less than 10% of total energy intake per day. It further suggests that a reduction to below 5% of total energy intake per day would have additional benefits. Five per cent of total energy intake is equivalent to around 25 grams (around 6 teaspoons) of sugar per day for an adult of normal Body Mass Index (BMI).

The suggested limits on intake of sugars in the draft guideline apply to all monosaccharides (such as glucose, fructose) and disaccharides (such as sucrose or table sugar) that are added to food by the manufacturer, the cook or the consumer, as well as sugars that are naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit concentrates.

Much of the sugars consumed today are “hidden” in processed foods that are not usually seen as sweets. For example, 1 tablespoon of ketchup contains around 4 grams (around 1 teaspoon) of sugars. A single can of sugar-sweetened soda contains up to 40 grams (around 10 teaspoons) of sugar.

The draft guideline was formulated based on analyses of all published scientific studies on the consumption of sugars and how that relates to excess weight gain and tooth decay in adults and children.

Click here to go to WHO webpage.

 by Cassandra Willyard in the Journal Nature

Antibiotics offer tremendous benefit to patients with infectious diseases and are commonly administered to patients cared for in U.S. hospitals. However, studies have demonstrated that treatment indication, choice of agent, or duration of therapy can be incorrect in up to 50% of the instances in which antibiotics are prescribed. One study reported that 30% of antibiotics received by hospitalized adult patients, outside of critical care, were unnecessary; antibiotics often were used for longer than recommended durations or for treatment of colonizing or contaminating microorganisms. Incorrect prescribing of antibiotics exposes individual patients to potential complications of antibiotic therapy, without any therapeutic benefit. One such complication is infection with Clostridium difficile, an anaerobic, spore-forming bacillus that causes pseudomembranous colitis, manifesting as diarrhea that often recurs and can progress to sepsis and death; CDC has estimated that there are about 250,000 C. difficile infections in hospitalized patients each year. Other complications related to unnecessary use of antibiotics include infection with antibiotic-resistant bacteria and complications from adverse events.

Antibiotic prescribing for inpatients is common, and there is ample opportunity to improve use and patient safety by reducing incorrect antibiotic prescribing.

Click here to go to full article on CDC website

   Photo by Ian Williams, Rotary Club of Nanaimo.

On Thursday evening, members of the five Nanaimo area Rotary clubs, together with guests, gathered to celebrate the 109th anniversary of the founding of Rotary. It was 1905, in Chicago, that a young lawyer named Paul Harris, recently moved to the bustling city, brought three friends together to form the first Rotary Club. His goal was to create a circle of friendship, with those who shared his high ethical standards. They quickly realized that a small group of talented, motivated people can accomplish amazing things, and Rotary's commitment to service was born.

In a few short years, Rotary Clubs sprang up across the United States and into Canada, and within 16 years had clubs on six continents. Rotary is a worldwide organization of business and professional people that provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations, and helps build goodwill and peace in the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 31,000 Rotary clubs located in 166 countries.

The Rotary Club of Nanaimo was formed in 1920, and over the years included many of the city's "movers and shakers" in its membership. It took 52 years before the next club, Nanaimo North was formed, and only 16 years later, in a burst of expansion, three more clubs arose: Lantzville (1988), Nanaimo Daybreak (1995), and Nanaimo Oceanside (1995).

Click here to read full story.

On 23 February 1905, Paul P. Harris, Gustavus Loehr, Silvester Schiele, and Hiram E. Shorey gathered in Loehr’s office for what would become known as the first Rotary club meeting.

Harris’s desire for camaraderie among business associates brought together these four men and eventually led to an international organization of service and fellowship.

Read about each of the first four Rotarians below, and about Harry L. Ruggles, who is often called the "fifth Rotarian."

Rotary’s founder, Harris, was born in Wisconsin, USA, on 19 April 1868. He was raised by his paternal grandparents in Vermont and attended the University of Vermont, Princeton, and the University of Iowa. He was Rotary president from 1910 to 1912 and a member of the Rotary Club of Chicago until his death on 27 January 1947. Learn more about the founder.

Loehr, a mining engineer, was born on 18 October 1864 in Carlinville, Illinois. He was a Rotarian for only a few years, never holding office at the club or international level. But that first Rotary meeting was held in his office, Room 711 of the Unity Building in downtown Chicago. He died in Chicago on 23 May 1918.

A Rotarian for only a few years, Shorey served as recording secretary during the club’s first year. He was born in Maine in August 1862 and died in March 1944.

Schiele, a coal dealer, served as the Chicago club’s first president in 1905 and Rotary International’s third treasurer in 1945. Born in Terre Haute, Indiana, in June 1870, Schiele attended Terre Haute Business College and served in the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War. He was president of the Schiele Coal Company from 1902 until his retirement in 1939. He and Harris became lifelong friends and lived near each other on the South Side of Chicago. Schiele died on 17 December 1945 and is buried near Harris at Mount Hope Cemetery.

Originally from Michigan, Ruggles was a graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and joined Rotary at its second meeting. He was treasurer of the Chicago club during its first year, president from 1908 to 1910, and a Rotary director from 1912 to 1913. He is known for having introduced singing to Rotary club meetings. His printing company, H.L. Ruggles & Co., printed the first issue of The National Rotarian and the first Rotary songbook. He died on 23 October 1959, an honorary member of seven clubs in addition to his home club, the Rotary Club of Chicago.

Learn more about the history of Rotary

 By Dan Nixon Rotary News  31-Jan-2014

    A child is vaccinated against polio in Côte d’lvoire, which has been free of the disease since 2011. 

President Barack Obama signed an omnibus appropriations bill in January that provides $205 million to support polio eradication in 2014, through the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U. S. Agency for International Development.

The largest government donor to polio eradication, the U.S. has contributed more than $2.3 billion since the mid-1980s, when 125 countries were polio endemic and the disease afflicted 350,000 people annually. Today, only Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria are endemic, and in 2013, the combined incidence of polio in those countries fell to a record-low 157 cases. Last month , India reached a three-year milestone without polio, paving the way for the entire Southeast Asia region to be certified free of the disease.

"Eradicating polio will leave a lasting legacy of health care infrastructure, experience, and expertise that is already being used to benefit a broad range of global public health efforts," says James Lacy, chair of Rotary's Polio Eradication Advocacy Task Force for the United States and past president of Rotary International.

The task force leads Rotary's efforts to inform the U.S. government and other funding sources of the urgency and benefits of supporting the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).

One of Rotary's chief responsibilities in the GPEI is advocacy. In addition to contributing more than $1.2 billion to the initiative, Rotary has helped secure over $9 billion from donor governments since the GPEI was launched in 1988.

Atmospheric Rivers (AR) are relatively narrow regions in the atmosphere that are responsible for most of the horizontal transport of water vapor outside of the tropics. While ARs come in many shapes and sizes, those that contain the largest amounts of water vapor, the strongest winds, and stall over watersheds vulnerable to flooding, can create extreme rainfall and floods. These events can disrupt travel, induce mud slides, and cause catastrophic damage to life and property. However, not all ARs cause damage – most are weak, and simply provide beneficial rain or snow that is crucial to water supply

Click here to go to article on NOAA website

WASHINGTON, January 31, 2014 - The World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim issued the following statement today:

“The appointment of Michael R. Bloomberg as a Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change to the United Nations should be applauded from Beijing to Rio to Mumbai. His selection is a huge boost for global leadership efforts to combat climate change.

“Unless the world takes bold action now, a disastrously warming planet threatens to put prosperity out of reach of millions and roll back decades of development. Those least able to adapt - the poor and vulnerable - will be hit hardest. 

“The World Bank Group is focused on five key areas that can have the biggest impact in tackling climate change: moving forward on climate smart agriculture; accelerating energy efficiency and investment in renewable energy; supporting work on ending fossil fuel subsidies; developing carbon pricing to get prices right for emissions; and building low-carbon, climate resilient cities.

Click here to go to full statement on the World Bank page.

By almost any measure, the world is better than it has ever been. People are living longer, healthier lives. Many nations that were aid recipients are now self-sufficient. You might think that such striking progress would be widely celebrated, but in fact, Melinda and I are struck by how many people think the world is getting worse. The belief that the world can’t solve extreme poverty and disease isn’t just mistaken. It is harmful. That’s why in this year’s letter we take apart some of the myths that slow down the work. The next time you hear these myths, we hope you will do the same. 

- Bill Gates

 Click here to go to story on the Gates Foundation website.

Happy Birthday Etta!

Today is Etta’s Birthday and our goal is to raise $2800 to build 5 1/2 (secretly hoping for 6) Ecological Composting Latrines.  She would love this idea, and we think it is a great way to remember how she inspires and motivates us to do incredible things in the world, NOT tomorrow or someday but RIGHT NOW TODAY!!

We have been at it all day on line with FACEBOOK and some of you have given!! Thank you very much!!! If you haven't and you want to help us get there consider $28 to bring a life changing sanitation facility to a rural Bolivian family. We are up to $1749. right now!! Whew Hew!!

Hope you have hugged your toilet today because if you didn't have one, life would look and smell a lot different. We have posted some videos on line for those of you who do not have Facebook. Link here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJJ4Cwh1EvKwOz0ej4uQU1YWve6Yf285g  or see them on Facebook     https://www.facebook.com/EttaProjects! Please donate and share with your friends and family, it is not every day that you celebrate a life with a toilet, at least in this country. 

Etta Projects

NASA scientists say 2013 tied with 2009 and 2006 for the seventh warmest year since 1880, continuing a long-term trend of rising global temperatures.

With the exception of 1998, the 10 warmest years in the 134-year record all have occurred since 2000, with 2010 and 2005 ranking as the warmest years on record.

NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York, which analyzes global surface temperatures on an ongoing basis, released an updated report Tuesday on temperatures around the globe in 2013. The comparison shows how Earth continues to experience temperatures warmer than those measured several decades ago.

The average temperature in 2013 was 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit (14.6 Celsius), which is 1.1 F (0.6 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline. The average global temperature has risen about 1.4 degrees F (0.8 C) since 1880, according to the new analysis.

While the world experienced relatively warm temperatures in 2013, the continental United States experienced the 42nd warmest year on record, according to GISS analysis. For some other countries, such as Australia, 2013 was the hottest year on record.

     Click here to go to full press release on NASA website.

     Hyderabad Public School

Throughout India and around the world, Rotary clubs are celebrating a major milestone: India has gone three years without a new case of polio. The last reported case was a two-year-old girl in West Bengal on 13 January 2011.

To mark this historic triumph -- reached after a decades-long battle against polio -- Rotary clubs illuminated landmarks and iconic structures throughout the country with four simple but powerful words, "India is polio free."

The three-year achievement sets the stage for polio-free certification of the entire Southeast Asia region by the World Health Organization. The Indian government also plans to convene a polio summit in February to commemorate this victory in the global effort to eradicate polio.

The challenge now is to replicate India's success in neighboring Pakistan, one of three remaining polio-endemic countries, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria.

Rotary leaders in India are working with their Pakistani counterparts to share best practices and lessons learned during India's successful anti-polio campaign. Rotary was particularly effective in obtaining the support of influential religious leaders in India's Islamic communities. Pakistani Rotary leaders are playing a similar role to counter rumors and misinformation about polio vaccinations that keep some Muslim parents from immunizing their children.

Meanwhile, National Immunization Days continue in both countries. During these large-scale drives, Rotary volunteers join health workers to vaccinate every child under age five against polio.

"We must now stop polio in Pakistan to both protect Pakistani children and to safeguard our success in India and other countries where we have beaten this terrible disease," says India PolioPlus Committee Chair Deepak Kapur. "Until polio is finally eradicated globally, all unvaccinated children will remain at risk of infection and paralysis, no matter where they live."

       Samuel Obour, Registrar of Sunyani Polytechnic, past president of RC Sunyani Central.

Providing clean water and preventing disease drive Samuel Obour’s quest to make life better for people in Ghana. Assistant governor of District 9102 and a member of the Rotary Club of Sunyani Central, Obour and his club recently worked with Canadian Rotarians on a global grant project to install latrines at a primary school in Sunyani and a washing station and toilets at a busy rural market. Efforts like these help prevent the spread of dysentery and other bacterial diseases.

Obour has also helped tackle Buruli ulcer, a flesh-eating bacterial disease that often necessitates amputation of the affected limb. Although the transmission source of the bacteria isn’t certain, lesions detected early can usually be treated with antibiotics before they cause extensive tissue damage. Obour and his fellow Rotarians worked with the Ghanaian health service to educate villagers about the importance of early detection and to supply hospitals with necessary treatment tools.

Click here to go to story page.

Dec. 4, 2013    by Jill Sakai

   Grade 3 students at the O.K. School in Nelson House, northern Manitoba work on a computer. The school now ranks second in Canada and 49th in the world on standardized math tests

One Laptop per Child Canada is a charity that provides laptops to aboriginal children. Since its founding in 2010 it has distributed 3,800 of the tough little computers.   The computers, worth $235 apiece, come fully loaded with HD video, YouTube streaming, 60 literacy programs, a physical fitness app, a nutrition app, a financial skills app, math games, activities that help kids cope with bullying, alcohol, solvents, family violence, drugs and depression and 25 books written by First Nation, Métis and Inuit authors in aboriginal languages. The scope for creativity is almost limitless.

The sponsors of the program are the Belinda Stronach Foundation; Vale, the global mining giant; the Bank of Montreal and the Ontario ministry of aboriginal affairs.

Click here to read full article in the Toronto Star.

  UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres with Evelyn Ohenewaa Gyasi of the Ghana Bamboo Bikes initiative and UN Secretary-General  Ban Ki-moon

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and I were able to briefly give our sore feet a break by getting on bamboo bicycles, manufactured by women in Ghana, and celebrated by our “Women for Results” focus area of Momentum for Change. These bicycles, constructed from material that absorbs carbon dioxide, are a symbol of sustainable development, women’s empowerment and the desire to improve people’s lives.

Possibly the most vocal “special interest” group at COP 19 was the group of activist women, highlighting the issue of gender equality and women’s power to fight climate change. Women quite literally rocked COP 19 with moving testimonials of what they are doing and a vision of the safe world they see for themselves and their children.

 Women play a key role in the UNFCCC secretariat’s Momentum for Change initiative. In Warsaw, our initiative celebrated the 2013 Momentum for Change Lighthouse Activities to recognize climate actions that demonstrate positive results through innovative finance, women’s leadership and action by and for the urban poor.

 Cities and regions were represented at the COP as never before. This is extremely important, given that more than half the global population lives in urban areas, which produce around 80% of energy-related emissions. Many mayors and governors are very vocal and have clear, practical ideas about what is required for a successful climate agreement in 2015, and how they can contribute to the growing momentum for action.

Click here to read the full article on the UNFCCC webpage.

Illicit Financial Outflows from Developing World Up 13.7% from 2010

Nearly $6 Trillion Stolen from Developing Countries in Decade between 2002 and 2011

China, Russia, Mexico, Malaysia, India—in Declining Order—are Biggest Exporters of Illicit Capital over Decade; Sub-Saharan Africa Suffers Biggest Illicit Outflows as Percent of GDP

Study Is First GFI Analysis to Incorporate Re-Exporting Data from Hong Kong and First GFI Report to Utilize Disaggregated Trade Data in Methodology

WASHINGTON, DC – Crime, corruption, and tax evasion drained US$946.7 billion from the developing world in 2011, up more than 13.7 percent from 2010—when illicit financial outflows totaled US$832.4 billion.  The findings—which peg cumulative illicit financial outflows from developing countries at US$5.9 trillion between 2002 and 2011—are part of a new study published today by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington, DC-based research and advocacy organization.

The report, “Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2002-2011,” [ PDF | HTML ] is GFI’s 2013 annual update on the amount of money flowing out of developing economies as a result of crime, corruption and tax evasion, and it is the first of GFI’s reports to include data for the year 2011.

“As the world economy sputters along in the wake of the global financial crisis, the illicit underworld is thriving—siphoning more and more money from developing countries each year,” said GFI President Raymond Baker.  “Anonymous shell companies, tax haven secrecy, and trade-based money laundering techniques drained nearly a trillion dollars from the world’s poorest in 2011, at a time when rich and poor nations alike are struggling to spur economic growth.  While global momentum has been building over the past year to curtail this problem, more must be done.  This study should serve as a wake-up call to world leaders: the time to act is now.”

Click here to read full press release.

Citrus for Charity being delivered to Loaves and Fishes Community Food Bank.  Other deliveries included Salvation Army, Haven House, Women's Centre, Georgia Avenue School and John Barsby Community School.

Thank You for your generosity.

LOL - for any of you who weren't there on Saturday, this is what was really going on at the Citrus sale - 2 videos

http://www.jibjab.com/view/SUTLVa4hLw6stUtjZRti

http://www.jibjab.com/view/zDMNW4uAnf83axbfGZnV

 Check out these moves!

Gold, Robert (Bob) James August 6, 1953 - November 29, 2013 It is with great sorrow and heavy hearts that we announce the untimely passing of beloved husband, father, and brother Bob Gold on Friday, November 29, 2013, with family members by his side.   A memorial service to celebrate Bob's life will be held at 3 p.m. on Monday, December 16, 2013, at the Nanaimo Golf Club (A.V. Macan Room), 2800 Highland Boulevard.

Click here to go to the obituary in the Nanaimo Daily News

 Typhoon Haiyan was the most damaging storm ever to hit the Phillippines and globally is the strongest storm to make landfall. Our club has purchased one container of supplies and individual members have contributed to purchase an additional two containers from Disaster Aid. 

The following report was forwarded by Alan Lomax:

According to the authorities, the official death toll stands at 5,500, while an additional 1,800 people remain missing (28 November).

In addition to the immediate relief provided by Disaster Aid International,   the group is now well into its main deployment plan.

After careful assessment of need and operational issues,  DAI is deploying  in two areas on Panay Island; Estancia and President Roxas.   Estancia is a coastal municipality which has not only been badly hit by the typhoon and also by a major oil spill that resulted.  It also includes a number of islands which have been particularly badly hit.  President Roxas is in the North of Panay and has been very badly hit.

DAI will continue to work with Balay Mindanaw and Johanniter, which means that it will be working within a partnership which will provide a wider set of aid and services, including psychosocial services, distribution, manpower and food packs.  While Christine Cassar returned to the UK on 1 December, she is being replaced by two other members of the Disaster Aid Response Team to join Ed Cox who has remained on site.  The Team will also be working with volunteers from the local  Rotary Club of Iloilo Metro.  [Christine Cassar is completing a doctorate in conflict resolution and peace at Manchester University in the UK and is supported by a Rotary Scholarship. ]

As a result of the assessment, it emerged that the Family Survival Kits were not appropriate in all circumstances.  An important factor was the fact that most families refused to leave their demolished or damaged homes because they knew that,  if they were relocated, they would loose their claim on their land.  Given the compact nature of their villages, there was often no physical space to put up tents in close proximity to their original homes.  Given the mission of DIA to rebuild communities sustainably, the decision has been taken to replace some of the Family Survival Kits with 500 Shelter Repair Kits (made up of roofing palm, lumber, marine plywood, nails, hammer and bamboo rope).  A further 500 kits are being sourced at this time and it is hoped that DAI will be in a position to pay for a further 1000 kits during this deployment.  These kits will be resourced locally under the supervision of DAI. The current kits will be complemented with 10,000 tarpaulin sheets.

It is anticipated that the current deployment will be completed by the end of December. However,  five other areas on Panay have been identified as being  in need of support. A decision will be made on 15 December to what extent the deployment can be extended depending upon the availability of funds.

DAUK&I have been overwhelmed by the generosity of so many who have come forward to support this deployment and enabled us to be responsive to the real needs of those affected.  From DAI’s previous three deployments in the Philippines, it is known that the Philippinos are incredibly resilient and can work wonders in rebuilding their communities.  However, no one has had experience of the level of devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan.

Click here to listen to an interview with Christine Cassar after she returned to the UK.

Doing good for others warms the heart—and may protect the heart, too. Psychologists at the University of British Columbia asked 106 high school students to take part in a volunteering study. Half of the students spent an hour every week for 10 weeks helping elementary students with homework, sports or club activities. The other half of the students did not participate in volunteer work.

Using questionnaires and a medical examination both before and after the 10-week period, the researchers found that students who volunteered had lower levels of cholesterol and inflammation after the study. Those who did not volunteer showed no such improvements.

Click here to read article in Scientific American.

Marion Bunch on The Power of Rotary from Rotary International on Vimeo.

In 1994, Marion Bunch lost her son to AIDS. It was early on in the U.S. AIDS epidemic, and the stigma surrounding the disease kept her from talking about her son’s illness with anyone but family members.

“I never thought I’d do anything about it until one day, three years after his death, I felt a tap on the shoulder, and a voice in my ear said, ‘Mom, get up and get going; you haven’t done anything, and it’s been three years,’” she recalls.

Within a year, Bunch, a member of the Rotary Club of Dunwoody, Georgia, USA, proposed an idea to her club, and through Rotary began connecting community and professional leaders who shared a passion for disease prevention. This was the start of Rotarians for Family Health and AIDS Prevention (RFHA), a Rotarian Action Group.

In May, the group held its third annual Family Health Days in Africa. Rotarians from 365 clubs fanned out across Uganda, Nigeria, and South Africa to help medical professionals and government workers provide free health services to 250,000 people. The event included polio and measles immunizations, dental and eye clinics, and family counseling and screening for HIV, diabetes, hypertension, breast cancer, and cervical cancer.

“The reach of this is so phenomenal because of the presence of Rotarians all across these countries who felt emotionally connected by working together as one force on one project,” Bunch says.

In South Africa, 225 Rotary clubs participated at 160 sites; in Uganda, 65 clubs supported 120 sites; and across Lagos and Ogun states in southern Nigeria, 62 clubs supported 70 sites. Two Rotary Foundation Global Grants provided funding to send vocational training teams to Uganda and to pay for bed nets that will help prevent malaria in Nigeria. 

“The heartbeat of the health care system must be prevention of disease and the promotion of health rather than [trying] to cure disease, to fix it after,” says Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, South Africa’s minister of health.

Chris Pretorius, a member of the Rotary Club of Pretoria Sunrise, South Africa, was amazed by the turnout for the event. “One of the members of the health department said they had never been able to get so many children here on a day like this,” he says. “That in itself is success.”

The campaign illustrates how Rotary teams up with other organizations to expand its impact. Since 2011, RFHA has partnered with the Coca-Cola Africa Foundation, which contributed $450,000 for this year’s three-country event. Other partners were South Africa’s Department of Health, the South African Broadcasting Corporation, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USAID, Delta Airlines, and Nampak.  

“We are proud to have partnered with RFHA and the Department of Health in promoting access to health screening services,” says Therese Gearhart, president of Coca-Cola South Africa. “At Coca-Cola, we invest in these initiatives because, together with our partners, we have a common vision of a South Africa that comprises healthy, strong, and thriving communities.”

Leaders of the Rotarian Action Group hope to reach more African countries through the event each year.

“Rotary is the catalyst organization in this event because of the power and [political] neutrality of our brand and the respect we receive worldwide for our ability to mobilize communities into action,” Bunch says. “This event represents the power of public/private partnerships. No one organization can do a massive event like this alone. Each partner has a defined role and set of responsibilities, and that’s why it works.”

• Learn more about the Rotarians for Family Health and AIDS Prevention
• Read an article about Marion Bunch in Spryliving.com

Click here to watch video

World AIDS Day is 1 December. Disease prevention and treatment is one of Rotary’s six areas of focus. The Rotarians For Family Health and AIDS Prevention, a Rotarian Action Group, was formed in 2004, and has been gathering Rotarians together to make a difference in the lives of many.

For the third year in a row, the action group will hold a huge health event in Africa in May, providing free health care services of all kinds (from HIV Testing to Polio Immunizations, tuberculosis, and malaria screening) to more than 200,000 children and families at 400 different sites in three countries. The Family Health Day takes place over three-days, led by Rotarians from 365 clubs.

Volunteers in all three countries are in need of supplies, such as malaria-treated bed nets, sanitary pad kits, and other items. In honor of World AIDS Day, learn more about how you can help by visiting the RFFHA’s website. You can contact Leonard Lanzi for help with grant support in beginning a Matching Grant or Global Grant application.

Read a blog post from the action group's founder, Marion Bunch on Rotary Voices.

 By Jenny Llakmani.               Adapted from a story in the November 2013 issue of The Rotarian  19-Nov-2013

By age 40, Jack Sim was a successful entrepreneur running 16 businesses. He had enough money to retire, so he started searching for a neglected cause to which he could devote his time and effort.

Realizing that people don’t want to talk about toilets, he set about making the humble commode into a media darling, founding the World Toilet Organization in 2001 and holding a special day every year to draw attention to sanitation. This year, the United Nations voted to make World Toilet Day, 19 November, an official UN observance.

Sim credits Rotary with helping him break the taboo around the subject. In October, his organization inducted Ron Denham, chair emeritus of the Water and Sanitation Rotarian Action Group, into its hall of fame. The honor recognizes the work Rotary and the action group have done to change behavior and improve sanitation.

“It is good to see Rotary being recognized for the impact we are having on people in the developing world,” Denham said. “But this award is a wake-up call as much as a recognition. No progress has been made toward the [UN’s] Millennium Development Goal of increasing access to safe sanitation. We as Rotary members must shift our focus from water to water and sanitation.”

We sat down with Sim, also known as Mr. Toilet, at the action group’s World Water Summit in Lisbon, Portugal, in June.

The Rotarian: You use humor to break through the toilet taboo. How did you come up with that approach?

Jack Sim: Once you make people laugh, they will listen to you. I saw another person who did it very well: Mr. Condom from Thailand. He promoted the condom by making people laugh, so I did the same with toilets.

Everybody has their personal toilet horror stories, whether about their travels or about their children. You just have to let the conversation flow naturally, and everybody will talk about toilets. In fact, once they feel it’s a legitimate topic, they can’t stop.

What can Rotary members do to get people talking about sanitation?

Sim: More than 100 years ago, one of the first Rotary projects was to build a public toilet. Every Rotary member should know this story. When members do water and sanitation projects, at least 85 percent of them focus on water. But you cannot have clean water if people are still defecating into the river. You cannot improve quality of life for the poor if people are still getting sick because of lack of proper sanitation. Women cannot be safe if they are subjected to rape or molestation because they have to go to the toilet in the bush. You cannot achieve education for girls if they have no place to change their sanitary napkin, so they drop out of school for a week every month to avoid embarrassment, and eventually cannot catch up and drop out altogether.

You and others talk about approaching sanitation from the angle of behavior change and getting people to want to use toilets. What should Rotary be doing differently to promote sanitation?

Sim: The way to do it is to make toilets sexy, to make toilets a status symbol just like a cell phone. Even schoolchildren in the slums have cell phones, yet they have no toilets. The best way to know that a person wants a toilet is when he buys it.

A market-based solution is the most sustainable model. Instead of putting toilets in the ground and hoping people use them, if you invest this money in training people to set up a factory to produce toilets and train local ladies to sell toilets on commission, then you create jobs, you create entrepreneurship, and you deliver proper sanitation. Even after your investment is used up, the business continues to grow.

Although there are several sticking points to reaching a broader agreement at the U.N. climate talks in Warsaw, gender equality and climate change is moving ahead. Implementing a stronger commitment to the inclusion of women in climate policy and the U.N. climate negotiations process is a bright spot at the talks in Warsaw.    Gender-sensitive climate policies recognize that women are disproportionately impacted by climate change impacts and have an important role to play in solving it. 

Click here to read full press release on US State Department website.

Rotary clubs around the world are pledging emergency aid to communities in central Philippines after last week’s massive typhoon flattened entire coastal towns and villages, killed thousands of people, and displaced nearly 600,000 more.

The situation remains dire as widespread destruction has made food, water, and medicine scarce in remote areas affected by Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest storm to make landfall on record.

Rotary President Ron Burton is urging our 34,000 clubs worldwide to continue to assist storm victims.

"I know we all want to help. I am urging our clubs to take action to provide emergency aid now and begin planning for the future when we can help rebuild homes, schools, and businesses," says Burton. "We are in the business of helping people in need."

Rotary partner ShelterBox has committed aid for 4,000 families in the form of emergency shelter and other relief assistance.

Such disasters are “exactly why we entered into our partnership with ShelterBox,” says Burton. “It gives Rotary members worldwide the opportunity to respond immediately and in a very meaningful way to the life-threatening conditions faced by the people of the Philippines.”

For nearly 100 years, Rotary clubs in the Philippines have been creating positive change in their communities. The first Philippine Rotary club was formed in Manila in 1919. Today, more than 800 Rotary clubs throughout the Philippines give members the chance to make a difference at home and around the globe.

Rotary's work to eradicate polio, our top priority, began in the Philippines. In 1979, Rotary funded the immunization of six million children with the oral polio vaccine. Based largely on the success there, the World Health Assembly authorized the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in which Rotary is a spearheading partner.

Rotary clubs in the Philippines have improved water and sanitation, led medical and dental missions, created literacy programs, and participated in reforestation plantings. When a 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck central Philippines in September, clubs were there to bring aid to those in need.

“Rotary members often are both first-responders and rebuilders when major disasters strike because clubs are present in every corner of the world,” Burton says. “We continue with recovery efforts long after international relief agencies have gone because Rotary clubs are part of the communities we serve.”

The Disaster Aid International Response Team was already in the Philippines responding to the earthquake last month. They sheltered through the storm and are now headed to the island of Leyte to assess the area. Over 10,000 estimated dead in one province alone. The need while be enormous, PLEASE consider a donation to www.disasteraidusa.org.   Donations give our team the ability to help this devastated people and country. Shelter, clean water, mosquito nets, solar lighting are just a few of the, items we bring.

If the gap is not closed or significantly narrowed by 2020, the door to many options to limit temperature increase to a lower target of 1.5° C will be closed, further increasing the need to rely on faster energy-efficiency improvements and biomass with carbon capture and storage.

In order to be on track to stay within the 2° C target and head off the negative impacts outlined above, the report says that emissions should be a maximum of 44 GtCO2e by 2020 to set the stage for further cuts needed—to 40 GtCO2e by 2025, 35 GtCO2e by 2030 and 22 GtCO2e by 2050. As this target was based on scenarios of action beginning in 2010, the report finds that it is becoming increasingly difficult to meet this goal.

Click here to read full press release.

Last week the new Rotary BREW (Beers Rotarians Enjoy Worldwide) Fellowship was approved by RI.

This fellowhip was initiated by

Moses Aryee

President Elect

RC Accra-West.

World Chairman

BREW Fellowship.

By Dan Nixon   Rotary News 25-Oct-2013   Rotary helped put polio eradication on center stage on World Polio Day, 24 October.

   Moderator  Rotarian Jennifer Jones (Windsor-Roseland Ontario) and Archie Panjabi.

A special Livestream presentation  –  World Polio Day: Making History – showcased the progress of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Co-hosted by Rotary and the Northwestern University Center for Global Health, the 60-minute program took place before a live audience at the John Hughes Auditorium on Northwestern’s Chicago campus and streamed online to viewers worldwide.

RI President Ron Burton kicked off the event by noting that Rotary began immunizing millions of children against polio in the 1970s, first in the Philippines and then in other high-risk countries.

“Polio rates in those countries plummeted,” Burton said. “As a result, in 1988, Rotary, the World Health Organization [WHO], UNICEF, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came together to launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.  More recently, the initiative has benefited from the tremendous support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation . . . . It is so very important to finish the job.”

Dr. Robert Murphy, director of Northwestern’s Center for Global Health, emphasized that polio eradication “is completely doable. . . . [It] will result in preventing billions of cases of paralysis and death, saving billions of dollars, assuring that no parent in the world will have to worry about this terrible disease ever again.”

Dennis Ogbe, polio survivor, Paralympian, and ambassador for the United Nations Foundation’s Shot@Life campaign to promote child immunization, spoke compellingly about the challenges of living with the disease and the opportunity to protect people from it for all generations to come.

“I have learned not to look at anything as impossible, and that includes, especially, the eradication of polio,” said Ogbe, who was born in Nigeria. “We have come a long way since the start. So let us finish strong and End Polio Now.”

Dr. Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general for Polio, Emergencies, and Country Collaboration at WHO, emphasized that the global fight is winnable, noting that the number of cases in the endemic countries –Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan – is down 40 percent in 2013, compared to the same period in 2012. He also said that the type 2 wild poliovirus has been eradicated, and said November will mark one year without a case of type 3 virus anywhere in the world.

Aylward also pinpointed challenges to the global initiative, including the outbreak in the Horn of Africa with 200 cases. Because of the strong response to the outbreak, however, the region “is again rapidly becoming polio free,” he said. Moreover, the polio endgame strategic plan, if fully funded, is equipped to stop such outbreaks.

“Today, all children everywhere can have a better future, not just against polio, but against every disease . . . if we as a global society get behind the vision of Rotary 25 years ago to reach every child with something as simple as polio vaccine.”