Page 5 - Apr 07

Janene. As a club, we thank them and wish Paul a speedy recovery and Janene the added
strength required during these challenging times.

Yours in Rotary Service,
Andrew Butterworth
Welfare

Rotary Information

Rotary Anti-Malaria Campaign and The Gates Foundation
By Abigail Pratt, Gates Foundation malaria program -

Over the last two decades, the partnership between Rotary and the Gates Foundation to
eradicate polio has been one of the most impactful collaborations in public health history.
Thanks to your leadership, vision, and commitment, the world is on the brink of eradicating
polio.

But the end of polio is not the end of our work together. The infrastructure and lessons from
polio eradication have already been repurposed to address other critical health challenges.
One of the most urgent is malaria - and at the heart of this fight are community health
workers.
So it was thrilling to join hands with Rotary and World Vision again on the Programs of
Scale award in Zambia "Partners for a Malaria-free Zambia" - that trained 2,500
community health workers to protect over 1.3 million people from severe illness and death.

These workers delivered integrated care, tackled malaria head-on, and provided a
transformative blueprint for public health projects.
Building on this success, we knew that we wanted to work with Rotary on something similar,
but even bigger. It needed to stay locally led by Rotary members but implemented in
partnership with government, and key organizations who have expertise and resources in the
public health systems.

Together we launched the Rotary Healthy Communities Challenge. This $30 million
program spans four countries - the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Mozambique,
and Zambia - where the need is greatest and where you all - locally and globally - are ready
to step in. Though newly launched, RHCC is already saving lives and demonstrating that this
partnership model can be replicated worldwide.

We already see opportunities to scale; places where Rotary members are energized and
committed to establishing community health worker programs and have already forged
longstanding, trusting relationships with local health authorities.

RHCC is more than just a program; it's a model for how Rotary and the Gates Foundation
and others can continue to work together to address systemic health challenges. By
leveraging each other's strengths, we can create sustainable, scalable solutions that have a
lasting impact.
But there is still much to be done. Malaria is facing resistance on every front. Many programs
face fragmentation, insufficient resources, and challenges in scaling effectively. And moving

beyond a project-by-project mindset to engaging in longer-term planning and resource
mobilization is critical to moving from helping one child at a time to eliminating a
preventable and treatable disease like malaria.