Rotary makes high-quality health care available to vulnerable mothers and children so they can live longer and grow stronger.
We expand access to quality care, so mothers and children everywhere can have the same opportunities for a healthy future. An estimated 5.9 million children under the age of five die each year because of malnutrition, inadequate health care, and poor sanitation — all of which can be prevented.
How Rotary makes help happen
Rotary provides education, immunizations, birth kits, and mobile health clinics. Women are taught how to prevent mother-to-infant HIV transmission, how to breast-feed, and how to protect themselves and their children from disease.
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Healing scars of war
In the mountains of Poland, 26 children traumatized by violence get a chance to be kids again at Rotary camp where psychologists mix escape and therapy.
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Sustainable programs
Rotary programs improve women’s access to skilled health personnel: doctors, nurses, midwives, or community health care workers.
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Clean births
Rotary members distribute clean birth kits and train health workers in safe delivery of babies.
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Keeping children alive during their first year
Rotary members teach mothers how to breast-feed, promote immunizations and regular checkups, and distribute insecticide-treated bed nets.
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Telemedicine
Through the use of technology, doctors are bringing health care to women and children living in rural Nigeria.
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Lifesaving Hospital Equipment
Clubs in Japan and Brazil used a Rotary Foundation global grant to equip a hospital with lifesaving neonatal equipment.
Our impact on the lives of mothers and children
The Rotary Foundation reaches mothers and children in need by giving communities the help and training they need to take control of their own maternal and infant health care.
Rotary makes amazing things happen, like:
Mobile prenatal clinics
Haiti has the highest maternal and infant mortality rate of any country in the western hemisphere. Rotary provided a fully equipped medical Jeep to volunteers and midwives to reach mothers and children in remote areas.
Cancer screening
Rotarians provided a mobile cancer screening unit and awareness trainings around Chennai, India, where there is a high mortality rate of women with breast and cervical cancer due to late diagnosis.
Preventing injuries and deaths
Rotary members launched a $3 million, five-year pilot to save lives of mothers and children during home deliveries in Nigeria. Since 2005, they’ve also repaired 1,500 obstetric fistulas — 500 more than their initial goal — restoring dignity and hope to vulnerable mothers.
“If mothers are empowered and healthy, so are their families, leading to an alleviation of poverty and hunger.” Robert Zinser, co-founder of the Rotarian Action Group for Population and Development and retired president for Asia at chemical giant BASF
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Telemedicine brings health care to rural Nigeria