Firsthand Accounts of the Fight Against Polio

By Maureen Vaught
 

Last year, two women, with a nearly 50-year age gap between them, left their comfortable homes in the United States and traveled halfway around the world to take part in their first-ever mass polio immunization effort. Molly Williams, a teenager from the Pacific Northwest, traveled to Ethiopia, where wild poliovirus has made an unwelcome return. Charlene Hall, a grandmother from the South, flew to India, one of four remaining polio-endemic countries.

During their trips, Williams and Hall kept a daily journal of their experiences.

Through their online journals, learn what it’s like to be part of Rotary’s campaign to immunize millions of children against polio. When you’ve finished reading about their adventures, watch the travelers’ stories and hear them describe this once-in-a-lifetime experience in their own words.

In October, Molly Williams, a 17-year-old high school junior from Seattle, flew to Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Her mother, Penny LeGate, an anchor for Seattle’s CBS affiliate television station, joined her, along with about 68 Rotarians and volunteers.

Williams was born more than a decade after the last case of indigenously acquired polio occurred in the United States, but she was eager to help. She’d heard about the mass polio immunization efforts from her mother. LeGate, who was made an honorary member of the Rotary Club of University District of Seattle in 2004, has participated in five National Immunization Days (NIDs).

She also produced a 30-minute documentary about a group of Seattle Rotarians who travel to Ethiopia for service projects, including polio eradication.

“It’s a dream come true to be able to help people in a way I never could here in the United States,” says Williams as she reflects on her first trip to help fight polio.

Charlene Hall, a 62-year-old grandmother from Dunwoody, Georgia, USA, embarked on a journey to eradicate polio in November. With her husband, Robert, a member of the Rotary Club of Dunwoody, and 16 Rotarians and volunteers, Hall traveled to Moradabad in Uttar Pradesh, India. Her group was just one of several participating in the immunization effort there.

Hall grew up in a world where polio’s crippling effects were an everyday occurrence. She had classmates who needed leg braces and crutches to walk after contracting the disease. Now, Hall is committed to making sure no more children suffer because of polio.

She says she and her husband “believe it is important to finish the job Rotary started. No child should have to suffer the consequences of this dreaded disease.”