End Trachoma
UPDATE at End of December 2021
From Sandi Fulcher
The year has been challenging and yet each of you has continued to provide support by collectively supplying Toiletry Kits for over 3,600 children in the Northern Territory. What started out with a goal of 1,000 soon grew, and the willingness of Rotary, Rotaract, Interact, RotaKids, and our many other Rotary partners, has simply been phenomenal. We cannot thank you enough."
Project Administration Coordinator
"To all who have supported our End Trachoma journey in 2021, we wanted to say thank you.
The 40 Toiletry Kits have now been freighted to destinations in NT– a thank you to our Rotarian, Michael, for transporting them to Canberra which saved us the cost of one leg of the transport chain. A huge thank you also to those members who worked on this project.
Our club was one of 52 clubs that supported this project, sending 40 toiletry bags filled with hygiene products including shampoo, toothpaste, face washers and brushes etc to the Northern Territory. The good news is that since 2008 Trachoma rates have fallen from over 20% to 3.8% nationally:
The project aimed to send 2,000 toiletry kits to schools, this target was exceeded with 2,154 kits sent to 32 schools in the Alice Springs region.
Our new members, Ann & Diane have enabled our project to ‘End Trachoma’ near completion. Ann contacted Colgate who very generously provided toothpaste and toothbrushes. Diane contacted Jo, a quilting friend from the Quilters Club of Mildura, who supplied and posted (at her own expense) enough different materials to make individual bags for each of the school children who will be receiving a Toiletry Kit. The Toiletry Kits will be distributed to schools in Central Australia.
A sample of the beautifully lined Toilet Bags made by Shirlee Hall, a friend of our Rotarian Roger. Shirlee has made 40 bags, all different so each school child will know which bag belongs to them!
We are getting ready to assemble all the items and they will then be sent to NT.
A huge thank you to everyone involved for their support in the elimination of this terrible disease.
A call has gone out to Rotary clubs to create Toiletry Kits for children in Central Australia to support the elimination of trachoma. Trachoma is an eye infection that can lead to blindness and can be prevented by good hygiene practices. Australia is the only developed country in the world with trachoma. The World Health Organisation has a global goal to eliminate trachoma by 2020.
Each Kit is made up with the following contents:
At our November Sunday Market, we distributed a flyer showing some of our current projects and asked the local community if anyone would like to help us. Pambula Hospital Staff generously responded and advised they are in the process of assembling all the required items and busy sewing bags to help us achieve our goal of making as many bags as possible. The Toiletry Kits will be distributed to schools in Central Australia early 2021.
We would like to thank everyone involved for their immense help in this very worthwhile project.
