Although Rotary International is most famous for its highly successful Polio eradication project, its local clubs, in cooperation with Rotary International are involved in a host of other international projects addressing Health, Hunger and Humanity.
Rotary clubs and Rotary International are currently concentrating efforts on water, literacy and hunger projects because 30,000 children under the age of five die each day, primarily from water-borne diseases.
One of the projects is called the Pure Water project. A company in Vermont, headed by a director-nominee of Rotary International, has developed very simple and extremely effective water filters for home and community use. The unit filters contaminated water into safe, drinkable water. The first design was a concrete affair that weighed about 300 pounds. It was manufactured at locations established in Honduras and other South American countries, and was carried by hand, over difficult mountain trails to remote villages. The improved design is a plastic container that was much lighter and uses the same local sand filtering system. The newest design is a completely self-contained model that requires no additional pipes, hoses, or containers. The unit weighs about fifteen pounds and lasts indefinitely, with only an occasional removal of a small amount of sand as the only maintenance required. Rotary clubs in the US and South American have financed the manufacture and installation of thousands of these units in South America. They provide safe water to those remote populations and eliminate the water-borne diseases and infections that result in diarrhea, skin lesions, and many other symptoms, and death for countless children in those areas.
To learn more about this and other projects, or to get involved in service to your community and your world, you may contact any local Rotarian.
