Our guest speaker, Dr Murray Verso, told us that trachoma is a contagious bacterial eye disease. It is caused by a lack of sanitation and personal hygiene. Repeated incidences of the disease can lead to blindness.
Australia is the world's only developed country affected by trachoma. It is prevalent in remote Aboriginal communities mainly because children do not clean their faces.
Ophthalmologist and former Rotary Scholar, Lien Trinh, initiated a program after discovering the high incidence of trachoma in outback Australia. Every Rotary District in Australia has now formed a special group to raise awareness and funds and to implement actions to eradicate trachoma by 2020. Murray is a member of the District 9800 group.
A number of projects are already in place to ensure that children in affected communities keep their faces clean. Some of these projects are:
Providing every home in remote communities with at least one acrylic mirror which is designed to facilitate pride in one's self and to highlight hygiene issues.
Provide every child at school with their own face washer. The usual practice is to share face washers and towels.
Run soap-making workshops so that people can make their own soap for their household.
Provide hand-operated washing machines to allow families to wash their clothes.
Donating funds towards the upkeep of community pools to ensure they are clean and safe from disease.
Murray explained that our club could help in various ways:
Make a donation for the purchase of mirrors, soaps or hand-operated washing machines.
Raise the profile of projects within the club and locally.
He said we could even come up with our own ideas about how to support the objective.
By achieving the goal of ending trachoma by 2020, it will coincide with a major event - the centenary of Rotary in Australia.
Click here to view a video about trachoma in Australia.
Click here to visit the End Trachoma by 2020 Facebook page.
