On 16 March, Colin Powell MBE and Rotary Liaison Ambassador for the British Polio Fellowship was invited to Westminster to attend a meeting of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, Reaching Every Last Child for a Polio-free World.
The event was hosted by Bob Blackman MP for Harrow East and Rotary International and took place at the House of Commons in Westminster, London. Its purpose, to discuss global progress in polio eradication efforts and the ways in which the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) will achieve a lasting world free of all polioviruses, for all future generations to come.
The GPEI is led by national governments with six partners – the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the vaccine alliance.
Later in the day several dignitaries addressed the audience, including David Salisbury, Chair of the Global Certification Commission, David Heymann, Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Rotary International’s President Shekhar Mehta and the World Health Organisation’s Polio Director Aiden O’Leary.
Colin was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2022 New Years' Honours list, for services to people with polio in the UK and to the criminal justice system.
Colin is a member of the British Polio Fellowship and a Rotarian. If you know of a Rotary group, u3a (the University of the Third Age) group or any other group that Colin could address as a polio survivor and motivational speaker in order to raise funds for the Fellowship, contact him by email talkpoio@powellnet.co.uk, Facebook (@Colin Powell Talks
) or Twitter (@ColinTalks).