Jianling Huang is still more comfortable speaking Mandarin than English, but now she’s as Aussie as any of us.

She and her children, Ruohua and Suyi, were three of the seven new Australians who made their citizenship pledges in Murray Bridge on Friday, Australian Citizenship Day.

Don’t mistake them for newcomers, though – they have lived in the Murraylands for about six years.

Michael and Valanique Callaghan were in the same basket.

They came over from New Zealand about 14 years ago, but said they wanted to be able to have their say by voting in Australian elections

“It allows us to be included in the community,” Ms Callaghan said.

“It’s a good little community – a great place to raise kids, having done it with my five.”

The two other new Australians sworn in on the day were Marcus Myers, from the United States, and Ivy Tubigan, from the Phillippines.

Mayor Brenton Lewis encouraged each of them to get involved in the community, if they were not already, and contribute to celebrations such as the Murraylands Multicultural Yuntu-Walun Festival and All Culture Fest.

“A lot of our new settlers work in the food processing industry,” he said.

“We know how tough that is, how tough the hours are and the travel time ... but take the time to put into the community.

“Teach us about your culture, your customs – we want to hear that, we want to be richer – and take in some of what we've got to offer.”

The Object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:

• FIRST: The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service;
• SECOND: High ethical standards in business and professions; the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations; and the dignifying of each Rotarian’s occupation as an opportunity to serve society;
• THIRD: The application of the ideal of service in each Rotarian’s personal, business, and community life;
• FOURTH: The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.

Rotary has been working to eradicate polio for more than 35 years, and we’ve made incredible progress in the fight to rid the world of it forever.

As a founding partner of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, we've helped to reduced polio cases by more than 99.9 percent.

It’s crucial to eradicate polio from the last two countries where it remains endemic and to keep other countries polio-free.

If all eradication efforts stopped today, within 10 years, polio could paralyze as many as 200,000 children each year.

What is polio?

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a paralyzing and potentially deadly infectious disease that most commonly affects children under the age of 5. The virus spreads from person to person, typically through contaminated water. It can then attack the nervous system.