Rotarian helps vaccinate his homeland of Ethiopia
In 1997, Ezra Teshome traveled from his home in Seattle to a Rotary peace conference in Ethiopia, where he was born and raised. Rotarians there were organizing National Immunization Days. In one village, Teshome met a man and his 8-year-old daughter, who had polio. The man thought the visitors were there to cure her. He asked Teshome for help.
“For the whole day, it really bothered me that the child was crippled for the rest of her life, for the loss of two drops of vaccine,” says Teshome, a member of the Rotary Club of University District of Seattle. “When I came back to the United States, I said, ‘I will come back every year to participate in National Immunization Days with my Rotarian friends.’”
Image credit: Monika Lozinska
The next year, about 24 people came with him. Almost every year since, he’s taken anywhere from 60 to 80 people at one time to administer vaccinations.
Ethiopia’s mountainous terrain and hot weather make transporting vaccines difficult. “When you walk three, four hours without any refrigeration system, the vaccine could start to spoil,” Teshome says. “We have built clinics and asked people to bring their kids there.” These clinics are also equipped to meet other public health needs in the communities.
The impact of Teshome’s trips has spread in other ways too. Rotarians attending his trips have helped install nearly 100 water projects throughout the country, provide 120 shelter homes, and donate ambulances.
Time magazine named Teshome a global health hero at the 2005 Time Global Health Summit. That year, Ethiopia’s national immunization campaign reached 16 million children. Looking ahead, Teshome wants to continue providing clean water access in Ethiopia, contribute to peace in the region — and see a worldwide end to polio.
This story originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Rotary magazine.