Saturday, May 22, 2021
Cedarburg, Wisconsin
7 AM - 3 PM CST

The ROTARY RIDE  bicycling event will be held on Saturday, May 22, 2021, with the start and finish at Cedar Creek Park in Cedarburg WI.

The ride benefits the Cedarburg-Grafton Rotary Foundation's technical scholarship fund and is open to the public.

All riding abilities are encouraged to participate.  10, 25, 45, and 65-mile routes are being planned along with a virtual ride.

So tune up your bike and get your family and friends together for this fun-filled event!

The $2 million grant goes toward Rotary club-led Partners for a Malaria-Free Zambia program; an additional $4 million contributed by partners the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and World Vision USA.

By Ryan Hyland Illustrations by Gwen Keraval

The Rotary Foundation is giving a significant boost to the fight against malaria in Zambia with a new $2 million Programs of Scale grant that will scale an already successful program model. Partners for a Malaria-Free Zambia is a Rotarian-led effort that will use a community health worker model proven to effectively respond to cases of malaria and prevent transmission. The program aims to help reduce malaria cases over time by 90% in 10 target districts in two of the country’s provinces.

Malaria, a preventable disease caused by a parasite spread through the bites of infected mosquitoes, continues to be one of Zambia’s leading causes of illness and death, especially infant and maternal deaths.

The grant will allow Partners for a Malaria-Free Zambia to strengthen the country’s health system by working with Zambian health officials at all levels and training 380 health facility staff members, as well as training and equipping more than 2,500 new community health workers. This will increase access to malaria diagnosis and treatment for the more than 1.3 million people in heavily affected areas in the Central and Muchinga provinces and greatly contribute to the national effort to eliminate the deadly disease.

By Rowland Kingsley Dappa, Rotaract Club of Port Harcourt Westfield, Nigeria

Rotaractors in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, came together to carry out a disease prevention project to fight the spread of COVID-19 and prevent a second wave of infections in our communities. Together with Rotaractors in Port Harcourt Spring Gardens and our host Rotary club, we distributed essential cleaning supplies and COVID-19 protocol information to public health care centers in the communities of Ogumnabali and Okuru-ama.

As we conducted research, community service directors helped us determine the availability of medical supplies and COVID-19 precaution kits at different care centers. They were determined to cooperate with us in informing people about how to stay safe during the pandemic.

We also provided the staffs and medical officers with cleaning supplies and medical items for taking care of pregnant mothers and newborns. Many women from rural communities come to the centers for prenatal and postnatal exams. We also gave patients and staff a presentation on how the virus spreads.

We divided into groups to distribute essential supplies and met with medical officials to discuss how to assist the women, who come mostly from low-income families. These women received support and aid to help them in their pregnancies, and we were able to provide supplies to ensure that the staff were sanitized and aware of COVID-19 protocols.

I was encouraged with the level of support we received, and that we were able to help improve the lives of pregnant women in these communities. We feel that other Rotaract clubs can adopt a similar approach to build awareness in their communities, by engaging with their community health centers.

We all need to do our part in helping our governments fight this pandemic. And as members of Rotaract and Rotary, we have a role to play in ensuring our medical staff have what they need and to provide them the encouragement to keep doing the vital work that they do.