PUPILS HELP RAISE AWARENESS FOR END POLIO NOW CAMPAIGN

12 Nov 2013

Pupils at Sibford School are joining forces with the Rotary Club to raise awareness of the End Polio Now campaign.

To coincide with World Polio Day on 24 October, the school will be planting 500 purple crocus bulbs around its music school.

And in Spring 2014, when the bulbs will (hopefully) be in flower, Sibford pupils will be using their musical talents to perform at a special fund raising concert.

Said Ali Bromhall, community development officer at the Quaker School: “We were approached by the Rotary Club asking if we would help them to raise awareness of the incredible work being undertaken internationally to eradicate polio and we were delighted to give our backing to this campaign.”

 

Pictured with the 500 crocus bulbs are Sibford School choir members Emily Sloan, Henry Jackson-Wells and Tom Smith.

 

In1985, polio affected 350,000 people, mostly children, in 125 countries. Since then, cases of the disease have been reduced by more than 99 per cent, and in 2012 the number of people affected by polio was just 223. The aim of the campaign is to eradicate polio completely, making it only the second human disease (after smallpox) to be wiped from the globe.

The purple crocus has been adopted as a symbol of the End Polio Now campaign because it represents the colour of the die dabbed on the little finger of children to show that they have been immunised against Polio.

Rotary International has been contributing to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative since 1988.