Kick Polio Out of Africa

This video features Rotary’s Kick Polio Out of Africa Campaign -- a four-month, Pan-African public awareness drive tapping the continent’s excitement over the 2010 World Cup and mobilizing the public for massive immunization rounds this spring targeting more than 100 million African children under the age of five. The ball passed through 23 polio-affected countries en route to Montréal. The Kick-Out finale event was held in Alexandria, on June 12. Egyptian National footballer Islam El-Shater kicked the ball toward the Mediterranean Sea — symbolically kicking polio out of the continent.
A virtual version of the ball (www.kickpoliooutofafrica.org) was launched in May and has gathered nearly 10,000 online signatures thus far.

In 1988, when the World Health Assembly passed the resolution to eradicate polio, which is the largest public healt inititiave in human history, all countries on the African continent were polio endemic with over 100.000 cases occuring each year.

Former South African President Nelson Mandela, in his 1996 address at the Organization for African Unity Summit, formally kicked off the “Kick Polio out of Africa” campaign. He declared: “We are calling on the continent's football players to bring their enormous influence to this campaign. Only unified efforts which galvanise whole societies towards these goals will succeed in kicking this virus, that looks so much like a football, out of Africa and eventually, out of the world.”

As the world celebrates the first World Cup on African soil, Rotary and its global partners are determined to provide Madiba (Mandela’s Xhosa title) with a lasting legacy.