From the Desk of Sue Paget, CEO RFHA
Who We Are
We are global Rotary Action Group and mobilizing partner of Rotary International, dedicated to disease prevention and treatment currently across Africa and India. Our signature program is the Rotary Family Health Days, which is now in its 11th year and is delivered through a public private partnership model.
It is the largest Rotarian-led program outside of PolioPlus, administered by way of leveraging and inspiring a force of humanitarian-driven volunteers through Rotary clubs. This program is executed for the community, in the community, by the community, with RFHA having the role as the convening entity.
With thanks to our public and private partners and fundamentally our Rotarians on the ground, we have served over 2.67 million people with over 11 million free health services!
And we are just getting started!
Why Are Rotary Family Health Days Important
We know that half of the world’s population cannot access affordable healthcare, so these RFHDs are vital for the well-being and survival of babies, children, adults and the elderly across Africa, India, and other developing countries.
On top of this startling statistic, the previous two years saw a global pandemic response that has overshadowed other diseases, resulting in them being neglected.
The Rotary Family Health Days program bridges this gap. It is now more than ever that we need to be the vehicle that drives crucial essential advocacy, support, and change.
A New Empowering Partnership
We are excited to be working on an empowering new partnership which will allow us to expand and scale our Rotary Family Health Days Program. It is an honour to announce the award from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for a two year pilot program in the amount of USD3 million.
Our partnership pilot plan will run across 2 years. In our first year, we will run RFHDs in 7 new countries and expanding to 10 in year two.
In year 1, we will run two family health days per year in the Southern African countries because of WPV outbreaks and four times per year in Nigeria.
In year 2, we will continue with the WPV countries and Nigeria and will look at other countries still to be confirmed but possibly CHAD, DRC, Niger and Benin.
This is a pilot program, but one we hope will be the start of a long-term valuable partnership for both RFHA and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to deliver upon our common healthcare goals.
Opportunities This Partnership Brings
• Fundamentally, the ability to reach more individuals with free vital healthcare and education
• Drives advocacy which in turn increases engagement with the program
• Creates the foundation to establish and roll out Rotary Family Health Days in 10 additional countries in two years – dare I say as a start!
• Expands proof of concept for long-term benefit.
• Enables stronger, scalable channels of communication & reporting by leveraging the foundation’s systems and offline reporting platforms at events
• Builds relationships across the Rotary Family - RFHA, Rotary Districts, Clubs & in-country RI Polio teams
• Advances technological support systems; we can fully digitize M&E system, digital portal for asset management and training materials through investment, improving best practices and streamlining tasks
• Standardizes reporting for greater assessment and learnings which will serve us well for expansion and new country roll outs
• Larger scale quality control between multiple inter-connected partnerships
• Leverages partners to support countries that do not fall within this grant mandate.
We know the need in Africa and developing countries is huge – it is a journey we would invite you to join us on.
How we can work together
Through RFHA, districts, clubs, Rotarians and Rotaractors can become part of a larger and more comprehensive response to disease prevention by providing opportunities for all to contribute through advocacy, fundraising, membership growth, lending expertise and facilitation to support the programme.
We become a stronger voice as part of an organization that is generating large and powerful multi-sectoral, multiple country partnership coalitions in response to disease prevention aligned with in-country governmental health plans.
We want to work with you all on this.
1. For those countries in this first pilot, please join us. Involve your local Rotary Club. Together we know we have the force to capitalise on this moment in our new world and RFHA is the vehicle to do it.
2. For those we hope will be in future health days: We want to inspire you to think about bringing Family Health Days to your country. We are constantly working to drive funding and are starting to gain traction on the world stage.
Let’s Talk
Access to healthcare is a human right that half of the world’s population is denied. We believe that our partnerships will be critical in “building back better”.
Let’s put our heads together to inspire action and strengthen healthcare systems across nations.
We need you.
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