Kiwanis partners with UNICEF for vaccine effort

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Guest speaker Francine Eikner speaks to Tuesday's Kiwanis attendants about the Eliminate Project which raises funds to provide vaccines for expectant mothers in underdeveloped nations. Courtesy photo

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September 13, 2012

Kiwanis partners with UNICEF for vaccine effort

By GREG RUSSELL, Register Staff Writer Gainesville Daily Register The Daily Register Thu Sep 13, 2012, 08:39 AM CDT

Gainesville — Gainesville Kiwanis Club members made contributions to a global cause during Tuesday’s meeting.

Francine Eikner, visiting coordinator for The Eliminate Project, told club members the project has allied the Kiwanis Club International Foundation with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to raise money for neonatal tetanus vaccines in underdeveloped nations.

“UNICEF is going to go on a door-to-door campaign in the rural areas of the Philippines, trying to identify the women who need to be vaccinated,” Eikner said. “And I thought, if they can go door to door, looking for a million women who need vaccines, then I can come to Gainesville and not complain about Interstate 35.”

The Eliminate Project stems from the UNICEF statistic that an average of 22,000 children die each day in “developing” nations due to disease, and all those victims are under five years of age.

Tuesday’s meeting ended with Eikner receiving an $800 check from the Gainesville club. The local donation, she said, is one of many among clubs in the Texas-Oklahoma “District 8” Kiwanis sector that have totaled thousands of dollars toward Eliminate.

Such a regional sum benefits the project in two ways: it funds vaccines for expecting mothers who can then pass on their immunities to their newborn children; and funds booster shots for babies who need protection against the tetanus that kills one child every nine minutes.

The fundraising target is $110 million through the next three years, and the individual benefit breaks down to $1.80 per woman.

“The maternal and neonatal tetanus is doable, the clinics are in place and the vaccines are being given,” she said. “They just needed some funding to get them to 2015.”

Proper disease prevention requires the expecting mother to visit her local clinic at least three times for tetanus shots, since only repeated injections will ensure immunity for the newborn.

“I think, when it comes down to saving the lives of your children, just by going to get your tetanus booster, they are going to be there,” Eikner said.

But the coordinator added that beyond 2015, UNICEF’s Eliminate fundraising phase will end and the clinics will be self-sufficient — albeit with help from the governments of those nations that had received Eliminate aid. That governmental contribution is expected to run in the range of another $140 million, and the funds have been committed.

In the meantime, the program requires a steady flux of generosity, and an expected minimum of 85 percent of all funds raised will go directly to UNICEF and Eliminate.

“That’s a pretty good percentage for a nonprofit,” Eikner said.

For donation or other project information, the webite at www.TheEliminateProject.org.

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Kiwanis partners with UNICEF for vaccine effort

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