The first Action Journey to win a chance for tickets to the Global Citizen Festival has already had some amazing outcomes, one of them from the Canadian Government.
Global citizens emailed the Canadian Government to let them know that the world needs their support to see the end of Polio once and for all.
All told, global citizens sent over 36,000 emails!!
Global citizens called on the Canadian Government to support putting polio on the agenda for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) which is taking place in Malta this coming November.
Polio is 99.9% eradicated worldwide, but there is still work to do and the final step is crucial to ending polio once and for all.
Polio is a devastating disease that can cause death or lifelong disability in the form of paralysis, breathing problems, cognitive difficulties and a host of other long terms issues. The worldwide effort to vaccinate against polio has brought humanity so close to eradicating a second disease from the world once and for all (the first was smallpox in 1980).
In order to get there, the world needs countries like Canada to continue pushing for the eradication of polio to be an international priority.
Here’s what the Government of Canada had to say in response to the tens of thousands of emails that they got from global citizens:
As long as #polio exists on the planet Canada will be a steadfast partner in the fight to #EndPolio@glblctzn
— DFATD (Development) (@DFATD_DEV) July 22, 2015Cda has been the largest donor to #EndPolio in #Afghanistan where more than 12M children have been vaccinated b/c of our support @glblctzn
— DFATD (Development) (@DFATD_DEV) July 22, 2015Canada is supporting efforts to improve immunization to make sure every child is reached & strengthen health systems #EndPolio@glblctzn
— DFATD (Development) (@DFATD_DEV) July 22, 2015It’s exciting that the Canadian government has taken the time to talk polio, but global citizens still need to push for them to step up and use their influence to help get polio on the agenda for CHOGM.
Haven’t taken the action journey yet? Take a few minutes and add your voice and let’s end polio for good!
Add your voice in TAKE ACTION NOW at the bottom of this article, and get Canada to push for ending Polio to be a priority for the international community.