Long Beach Rotarian Alex Cotton is a candidate for the Rotary World Peace Fellows Program. Two Rotarians are awarded the fellowship each year. Alex's discussed his work for Merlin and his aspirations as a Rotary World Peace Fellow.
Alex was born and raised in France, and the first time he heard of Rotary International he heard of the World Peace Initiative. Then his father's involvement got him interested in the notion of world peace.
Merlin (Medical Emergency Relief International, a British non-governmental, non-profit organization ) does magical work, which is long lasting. Merlin's actions are focused on: Building Field Hospitals; Mobile Clinics going into rural areas; and providing primary healthcare hiring local health coordinators who conduct education on disease prevention. Worldwide the company employs 74 health promoters.
Alex met the organization and it's work when he was a volunteer for a Sudan humanitarian project. Today Alex is Merlin's Regional Director. Merlin specializes in rebuilding critical health services and systems in hard-hit areas of the world, including Sub-Saharan Africa and Haiti. . Merlin focuses on recovery and the belief that "everyone has a right to affordable healthcare".
According to Alex, the key threats in the world are conflict, natural disasters e.g. Haiti; disease outbreak e.g. fever, cholera. Merlin maintains strong international connections, and comes into a stricken area and rebuild collapsed health systems. In Haiti, due to it's tight relationships with the Dominican Republic partners, Merlin was on the ground within 72 hours of the earthquake building field hospital, getting seven tons of medical supplies into the country, carrying out 392 life saving operations and treating 7,338 people in the first three weeks in Haiti. Hitting the ground running in a developing part of the world is almost unheard of. In addition to their partners, they hire local workers. In Haiti, some of their workers had lost loved ones, but it was all hands on deck helping all kinds of people.
Haiti operations included tents for post recovery, and surgical operations. Alex says these types of dyer situations brings you back to reality. As great as their hospital was, they were not able to handle everyone's need immediately.
"Creativity meets necessity", says Cotton. Merlin spent two years in Haiti and today the company supports 30 health facilities, performing 200,000 consultations, responding to two disease outbreaks; visiting 10,000 households visits; treating 13,000 people per month in mobile clinics.
From his volunteer stint in the Sudan, he pitched Merlin to hire him to open a US office, he was hired and has been with the organization ever since. Alex says you cannot get development if people are sick, that is why Merlin attacks the health system issues. This work brought him to desire to be a Rotarian Peace fellow, if he is awarded the fellowship, he will spend two years working for his degree.
The IRC club chose to support Alex's nomination for Peace Fellow.
