Featured Dispatch
Ethiopia :: Love at first sight
Laureen Lund '82 traveled to Ethiopia for three weeks to participate in Ethiopia's National Polio Immunization Day in 2008. What she saw and the people she met changed her life.
The first moment I laid eyes on Ethiopia, I fell in love with everything: her beauty, culture, history, and most of all, her people. Departing for Ethiopia I was devoid of expectation, but I returned filled with undeniable satisfaction.
In 2008, I traveled to Ethiopia for three weeks to participate in Ethiopia’s National Polio Immunization Day. I sought an opportunity to make an impact and to see Africa for the first time. The reality, however, was a love affair--an eye opening experience, unexpected and unplanned. Leaving home intending to make an impact, I returned deeply affected.
In 1988, Rotary International made a commitment to eradicate polio from our planet. From our planet! That’s an optimistic undertaking. Back then, I didn’t really know what Rotary was, nor was I aware that polio still raged across many parts of the world, including the African continent.
Since that 1988 commitment, Rotarians have worked side-by-side with the World Health Organization and UNICEF, and have vaccinated several billion children--the largest public health endeavor ever attempted. Vaccinating an entire country or continent takes a great deal of coordination, effort, and volunteers. Just two drops of oral vaccine is all it takes to keep a child from the paralysis of this disabling disease. Ethiopia’s children have benefited from this effort and Ethiopia is nearly polio free.
However, eradication won’t be complete until those who have suffered the ravages of this disease are included in everyday life. Today in Ethiopia there are still kids and adults who suffer, having never received “just two drops” before the vaccination program began. Hundreds of thousands of people are limited to a life of crawling and begging, with little hope of employment or a way out of the cycle.
While in Ethiopia, I was fascinated by how many non-government organizations are doing incredible work, particularly in Addis Ababa. I was gratified so see so many Rotarians working to assist at every level and for every cause. During previous trips my Rotarian colleague, Denny Wilford, had discovered his passion for the children at Cheshire House, a polio rehabilitation facility. Denny suffered from polio himself, as a small child in 1946, and his personal commitment to the Rotary cause is inspirational. Denny’s youthful excitement to have me along on this trip and to show me what he had witnessed on earlier visits surprised me. A bit skeptical that this experience would be “life-changing,” I nevertheless pursued it with an open mind. And I fell in love.
Cheshire House is home to about 40 children at a time, ages 6-16, in various stages of polio rehabilitation. Operated by the Leonard Cheshire Disability Foundation for more than 40 years, Cheshire House offers post-op medical care, as well as physical and emotional rehabilitation to children who are on-site from several weeks to several months following surgery. Since opening, Cheshire House has housed and helped more than 30,000 Ethiopian kids with polio. Cheshire House employs local people on the staff of its orthopedic factory, where it manufactures shoes, prosthetics, crutches, and wheelchairs. I was not expecting this to be such a happy, joyful place. These children are thrilled to be given the opportunity to be a part of this program, which in turn assists them to lead normal lives: going to school, learning skills, and helping lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
Cheshire House provides education and self esteem. Cheshire helps families understand polio, its causes, and consequences and also tries to create an understanding in the local population about disability in society. The role they have played in Addis for more than forty years is remarkable, especially given the very limited physical therapy equipment and resources they have available.
Falling in love with these kids, the Cheshire House, and Ethiopia was easy. The hard part was leaving them, and wondering what can I do to make their lives better. Back home in Gig Harbor, Washington, my local Rotary Club and our own polio survivor, Denny, now embark on a challenge to raise funds to assist Cheshire House with the construction of a hydrotherapy pool to be used for rehabilitation. This project is the first Rotary project to ever to be done at this facility, even though it has been in operation for 40 years. Swimming pool therapy is a prime therapy for children and adults with disabilities, but swimming pools are virtually unheard of in the area. By bringing hydro-therapy to Cheshire House, many kids and adults alike will have a vital new tool to help with both their physical and emotional recovery. Who doesn’t love to play in a pool?!
Smitten with the children of Cheshire House, I will return to Ethiopia again next fall. New faces will greet me with a smile. And hopefully, I will witness construction of the new hydro-therapy pool, one more reason for these kids to smile. Me too.
Laureen Haydock Lund (Comm ’82) is a member of the Gig Harbor Mid-Day Rotary Club, near Seattle in Washington State, USA. She has submitted this article as a volunteer, and encourages support of this program by going to www.poliofreeworldfoundation.org or www.gigharbormiddayrotary.org
http://www.lcint.org/?lid=2554
WSM Coordinates Archive
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Capt. Michael Unruh '04 serves on an F-15E Strike Eagle team supporting U.S. and coalition troops out of Bagram Air Force Base. In his role providing air support to servicemembers in Afghanistan, Unruh says "I've had no greater feeling of satisfaction than when I've completed combat mission and I know that I've helped save American and coalition lives that day."
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Vladivostok :: A Russian City in Asia
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Read the dispatch and view the interactive map
Ethiopia :: Love at first sight
2009.02.27
By Laureen Haydock Lund '82.
Laureen Lund '82 traveled to Ethiopia for three weeks to participate in Ethiopia's National Polio Immunization Day in 2008. What she saw and the people she met changed her life.
Read the dispatch and view the interactive map
On the waterfront
A photographic tour of Tacoma's waterfront
Washington State Magazine, Winter 2008/09
By Hannelore Sudermann. Photos by Ingrid Barrentine.
"Twenty years ago, the City Club of Tacoma approached the city with a plan to unify the waterfront and build a walking path from the Tacoma Dome to Point Defiance. The painstakingly researched report urged that the entire waterfront be redesigned as a people place. Lara Hermann '95 was thrilled when a city hall worker handed her the document. 'It was like a present just lands in your lap,' she says."
Read more in the Winter 2008/09 issue of Washington State Magazine.
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