Any child coming to the Putney Exchange between 10.00 am and 4.00 pm this weekend can get a purple pinkie (little finger). This is the mark given to children getting inoculated against polio in the few remaining countries where they risk catching the disease.
They can also get their pinkies painted the following Tuesday, 23 February, which is Rotary Day worldwide, and the next weekend (27 and 28 February).
On all these five days, members of Putney Rotary and other Wandsworth clubs will be present outside Waitrose in the arcade to talk about their work to abolish polio and other projects, including the current shipping of survival tents to Haiti. Rotary International has now given 7,000 of these tents, known as ShelterBoxes, to Haiti as emergency accommodation. The ShelterBoxes contain essential survival items.
Thanks to Rotary International's work, polio remains a threat in only four areas: parts of Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. Rotary and NGOs such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), have eliminated polio everywhere else.
End Polio Now is the campaign being launched throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland next Tuesday to raise enough resources to eliminate polio from the world. Members on duty at the Putney Exchange will tell visitors about this work and aim to raise funds at the same time. On Rotary Day (Tuesday) British and Irish Rotary Clubs will be marking the start of the end of the curse of polio. Rotary Day is the anniversary of the founding of Rotary on 23 February 1905 in Chicago.