John Gibbs posted on December 08, 2010 13:03
20th Century Fox has offered Rotary pre-release rights to the movie Conviction to help raise funds to End Polio Now, a campaign born from the initiatives of Australian Sir Clem Renouf.
CONVICTION is the inspirational true story of a sister's unwavering devotion to her brother. When Betty Anne Waters' (two-time Academy® Award winner Hilary Swank) older brother Kenny (Sam Rockwell) is arrested for murder and sentenced to life in 1983, Betty Anne, a Massachusetts wife and mother of two, dedicates her life to overturning the murder conviction.
Convinced that her brother is innocent, Betty Anne puts herself through high school, college and, finally, law school in an 18 year quest to free Kenny. With the help of best friend Abra Rice (Academy Award nominee Minnie Driver), Betty Anne pores through suspicious evidence mounted by small town cop Nancy Taylor (Academy Award nominee Melissa Leo), meticulously retracing the steps that led to Kenny's arrest. Belief in her brother - and her quest for the truth - pushes Betty Anne and her team to uncover the facts and utilize DNA evidence with the hope of exonerating Kenny.
A great opportunity to invite family and friends for an enjoyable night at the movies and join us in the conviction to help “End Polio Now”. Tickets at $25.00 include the movie, Pastizzi and refreshments. Ticket requests;
See and/or print Movie Flyer here: Portals/rlpw/Documents/Movie_Flyer_Conviction.pdf
THE POLIO CHALLENGE: Inspired by the Who’s eradication of Small Pox, Sir Clem Renouf, the second Australian to be elected President of Rotary International in 1978 came up with Rotary’s Health, Hunger and Humanity program that would initially see 6.3 million children immunised against polio in the Philippines and put Rotary on its course.
10 years later in 1988 Rotary’s efforts led to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – Spearheaded by the WHO, Rotary International, CDC and UNICEF. At the time, more than 125 countries were polio – endemic and more than 350,000 children were paralysed by the disease each year.
20 years later, we are on the brink of eradication. Contributions will help Rotary raise $200 million to match $355 million in challenge grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The resulting $555 million will directly support immunization campaigns in developing countries, where polio continues to paralyse children. All countries remain threatened without total eradication and once we have eradicated it, we can target another disease.
In an interview in Feb 2010, 88 year old Sir Clem Renouf had these words of conviction;
“I used to say it would be eradicated in the next few years, but it gets harder the closer you get. But I intend to die in a polio-free world.” More on Sir Clem’s 2010 interview is here: [Read the rest of this article...]
A snap shot of Rotary’s eradication efforts after 20 years can be found here: www.rotary9690.org.au/DistrictDocuments/rotarypolio.pdf