Yorkshire Rotarian Manoj Joshi will be shaving off his impressive purple beard for World Polio Day

He has already travelled the world as part of the Rotary International efforts to eradicate polio from the planet – now Bradford’s Manoj Joshi has an eye-catching challenge closer to home for this weekend as World Polio Day takes place.

The retired pharmacist has dyed his beard and moustache bright purple – the colour associated with the charitable fundraising efforts for the fight against the killer disease – and is now preparing for them to be shaved off on Saturday.

Joshi, who is district governor of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire for Rotary International, the humanitarian organisation that has been at the centre of the decades-long fight to end polio, has raised over £2,000 so far and hopes to get to more than £5,000.

“At the suggestion of my Rotarian daughter Megha, to commemorate World Polio Day on October 24 this year, I have decided to raise maximum awareness and funds for the cause by dyeing my lockdown beard and world-famous moustache bright purple and then shaving everything off – including my ponytail,” he explains.

“The purple crocus is a symbol of Rotary’s worldwide campaign to eradicate polio, with its colour representing the purple dye used to mark the finger of a child who

has been immunised. #EndPolioNow is a cause I have supported as a Rotarian for over 40 years in Yorkshire, and as an Interact Member (which is the junior arm of Rotary for teenagers) in Uganda were I was born.

“For the first time ever, my wife and children, and everyone else shall see me barefaced.

“My hair can always grow back, but for every £1 raised, the Melinda & Bill Gates Foundation will treble it and immunise 15 children from this crippling disease for life.”

Earlier this year, Africa was certified as free of wild polio four years on from Nigeria recording its final case. It leaves just Pakistan and Afghanistan as the only two countries in the world continuing to see wild poliovirus transmission.

As part of the awareness-raising efforts as a final push takes place to rid the world of the disease which usually affects children under five, public buildings in Bradford, Halifax, Knaresborough, Wetherby, Louth and Brigg will be among those lit up purple – with other parts of the UK and even Table Mountain in South Africa also involved.

The Rotary organisation will also have a live YouTube event on Saturday between 5.30pm and 6.30pm called ‘Rotary’s Gift to the World – our Polio story’.

In 1979, Rotarians began a vaccination programme in the Philippines and the success of that programme led the organisation – which has over one million members across the world – to launch an ambitious effort to eradicate polio from the world in 1985. It became a founding member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative three years later and in the past 35 years, more than 2.5 billion children have received the oral polio vaccine.

Manoj says: “We’re proud to be marking World Polio Day locally and recognising the work of Rotary and our partners and the millions of people involved in so many ways in the fight for a polio-free world. Only together can we end polio, a virus that is still potentially just a plane ride away. We have seen how we need to work together when dealing with Covid-19 and we can all play our part.

“Rotarians in Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire remain committed to working with our communities and our partners to eliminate this potentially deadly virus and make Rotary’s dream of a polio free world a reality.”

Click the link to visit Manoj’s fundraising page.

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