Well, I hope everyone is as excited as I am about the unveiling of my new blog. What I'm hoping for this particular blog is that, ultimately, people will come here when they need a bit of a pick me up or just some reassurance that the world isn't actually all that bad.
I would love to hear your suggestions and advice and please, if you see anything that you think would suit the "Good News" format, send it my way! My email is on the sidebar and please always include the link to the story/video and the source. I want to make sure I give out the proper credit. That being said, I'm new to this type of blog so, if you see any crediting errors or have any suggestion on how to credit people properly, please let me know!
The honor of the inaugural post goes to my home town news paper
The Regina Leader-Post. The Leader-Post actually has a section devoted to good news called
Good to Know! which I think is fantastic.
Regina couple help fight polio in west African country of Benin
BY PAMELA ROTH, LEADER-POSTMARCH 10, 2010
Photograph by: Supplied by Scott and Janice Yule
REGINA — Dressed in a white a T-shirt and matching baseball cap, Janice and Scott Yule suddenly had a fan club as they made their way through a remote African village in the Kpomasse region of Benin.
Armed with coolers stocked full of polio vaccination, the Regina couple traveled in the sweltering heat to villages with mud huts and thatched roofs, and placed two little drops of the vaccine into the mouths of children under five years of age.
The curious children followed them around like Pied Pipers and burst into laughter when they saw their image on a digital camera screen.
By the end of the day, the pair had immunized more than 3,000 children for polio, and they wouldn't hesitate to do it again.
"It was just an incredible thing to get involved and see," said Janice as she flipped through the photo album of her trip to Benin last November. "The people knew it was a good thing to have this so they were pretty excited about it."
Polio is a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease that strikes children mainly under the age of five in countries throughout Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
During the past 20 years, Rotary International has undergone an ambitious immunization campaign to eradicate polio. In 1985, there were 350,000 polio cases in 125 countries. Today, there are only four endemic countries — India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.
The disease has spilled across the Nigerian border into regions of Benin, which is the reason the Yules travelled from Regina to spend two weeks in one of the poorest countries in the world.
While there, they worked with about 50 other Rotary volunteers from across North America to immunize thousands of children under the age of five.
It was definitely an eye opener, they said, especially since the couple had never been to a place like Benin.
They arrived late at night in the capital city of Coutonou and stepped into a hot, crowded airport.
When they woke up to their new surroundings the next day, it didn't take long to figure out they were in a third world country.
The chaotic streets were littered with an ocean of motorbikes and friendly people selling whatever they could to make a few dollars.
When it came to immunizing the children, walking five miles among the villages under the hot sun was draining. Yet the Yules did it with a smile upon their face because it was the chance to finally fulfill a lifelong goal.
"The day was exhausting, but it was very fulfilling. You felt so exhilarated," said Scott. "This was an opportunity to go and experience something we've always wanted to do."
The Rotary Club recently marked its Polio Eradication Awareness Day on Feb. 23. Rotary has now surpassed the halfway mark in its effort to raise $200 million and match $355 million in challenge grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
© Copyright (c) The Regina Leader-Post
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