Our late friend, fellow club member and Past District 5040 Governor Michael Cruise, who passed away a year ago, bequeathed through his estate a significant donation to The Rotary Foundation Canada, in support of two of Rotary's seven areas of focus: Maternal and Child Health; Basic Education and Literacy. Thank you, Michael, with Beryl, for your forwarding thinking when you were with us, now and well into the future as your gift has a positive impact on so many young lives and their communities around the world.
Rotary makes high-quality health care available to vulnerable mothers and children so they can live longer and grow stronger. We expand access to quality care, so mothers and children everywhere can have the same opportunities for a healthy future. An estimated 5.9 million children under the age of five die each year because of malnutrition, inadequate health care, and poor sanitation — all of which can be prevented.Rotary provides education, immunizations, birth kits, and mobile health clinics. Women are taught how to prevent mother-to-infant HIV transmission, how to breast-feed, and how to protect themselves and their children from disease. Examples of this support include Mobile prenatal clinics, Cancer screening and Preventing injuries and deaths.
More than 775 million people over the age of 15 are illiterate. That’s 17 percent of the world’s adult population. Our goal is to strengthen the capacity of communities to support basic education and literacy, reduce gender disparity in education, and increase adult literacy. We support education for all children and literacy for children and adults.We take action to empower educators to inspire learning at all ages, such as Opening schools -- in Afghanistan, Rotary members opened a girls’ school to break the cycle of poverty and social imbalance --, Teaching adults to read, New teaching methods, Making schools healthy and Enhancing educational systems to advance life-long learning opportunities for poor and marginalized children.