BAMM!

It’s Blog About Malaria Month (BAMM)!  April 25^th is World Malaria day and to celebrate it, my friends over at the Stomping out Malaria initiative are sponsoring BAMM in order to show the world what volunteers all over Africa are doing to eradicate malaria! 

So, I’m here to do my part and tell you my story.  Malaria prevention was my first project in Senegal.  If you’re a loyal follower of my blog (or a new reader who has clicked back to 2010), you might remember the story of my first Senegalese meeting where we discussed Universal Coverage, or the time I fell in mud to deliver Malaria Education materials to health workers, or when I touched so many mosquito nets that I got nauseous.  In 2010, before the Stomp out Malaria initiative was created, I participated in the Universal distribution of insecticide treated nets in my area.  At that point, health volunteers were given basic training about malaria and projects that we could do in our villages.  We told villagers to sleep under their nets (even though at that point, a majority of people didn’t own nets), we taught them how to make neem lotion (which could ward off mosquitoes), and told them to go to the hospital for medicine.

Malaria education has come a long way since the beginning of my service.  In April 2011, the STOMP initiative was launched.  June 2011 was the very first boot camp, an intensive two week training where volunteers would learn all about malaria and become a part of the “Malaria Team”.  I was invited to share my experience with Universal Coverage at that first boot camp (which, looking at the presenters now, I feel extremely under qualified and wish I had the opportunity to learn from them).  Since that point, volunteers have been doing magnificent work in the realm of malaria prevention.  I wish I could say that I had a more active role in Malaria projects, but in the second year of my service, my focus shifted to nutrition.  I participated in Malaria trainings involving traveling theater troupes and taught children the importance of sleeping under a net, but in retrospect, I could have done a lot more.   

In my third year, I moved from my wonderful village to Velingara in order to work with a NGO on nutrition interventions.  I cherish the opportunity I’ve had to work within a NGO, but I missed the daily interactions with villagers (although I do love the air conditioning).  In September 2012, Sarah, a fellow volunteer, asked if I wanted to partner with her on a region wide mosquito net repair and care tour.  I jumped at the opportunity to be working in villages and to be interacting with people again.  Sarah was a rock star, taking the lead on village visits, seeing as I could only go out on weekends.  It turned out to be a beautiful partnership.  I would go to weekend events and during the week, when I had time, I would input data from the events and crunch the numbers.  At the end of our project, we visited a total of 20 villages, repaired/washed over 700 nets, and impacted over 1,850 people.  You can read the case study for more details. 

 Last week, I went on vacation to Sierra Leone and was able to see what their volunteers were doing to fight malaria.  Over 20 volunteers participated in a Malaria Bike Ride, where they went to villages and presented skits, asked questions, and sang songs in order to promote malaria awareness.  It was so fun to see volunteers in other countries working on similar projects, but utilizing their local languages and integrating aspects of their culture.  It is truly a continent wide fight!

This is only the second year of the Stomp initiative and there has been so much collaboration between volunteers within the same country and internationally.  So much has changed in my three years in Peace Corps with malaria prevention and I can’t wait to see what new innovations volunteers come up with to combat malaria.  Here’s hoping that we eradicate malaria within this generation.