World Malaria Day

April 25th is World Malaria Day. So it was a big day for my Malaria
Awareness Club at school. We started the club in January of this year,
and most of our meetings have been focused on learning about malaria.
For World Malaria Day, we decided to do some education and outreach.

The students made posters and hung them up in the classrooms at school.

Then on Friday, April 24th we had a malaria event at school. The
students performed a skit about malaria that they wrote themselves.

Here is a synopsis: It starts out with a girl that is sick, but her parents don't know what is wrong with her. Her father thinks she is bewitched. He goes to the Chief, and the Chief advises him to take her to the hospital. At the hospital, they test her and find out she has malaria. The father goes back to the Chief and tells him that the daughter had malaria. The Chief asks the doctor and nurse to come back to the village and teach everyone about malaria and how to prevent it.

They did such a great job! They practiced afterschool everyday, and improvised costumes like a paper hat for the nurse. The students loved it. Afterwards, we had a malaria quiz game. Then we showed a short video on the history of malaria, and passed out malaria crossword puzzles. I also put out an atlas showing all the regions of the world where malaria still occurs, and had a slide showing the malaria parasite, Plasmodium. We had about 90 students stay afterschool for the event.

On Saturday, April 25th I boarded a mini bus with my counterpart and 11 students and we headed east to a football and netball tournament. The tournament was organized by my PCV friend Justin for World Malaria Day, and all of the players went through the Grassroots Soccer Malaria training as a condition of entering the tournament. The crowd was huge!

Before the game, my students read the Mrs. Mosquito book to a group of children. The book teaches the importance of sleeping under a mosquito
net.

My PCV friend Emma was at the tournament with her counterparts too.
They did a bed net care and repair session. They showed my students
how to wash and sew up holes in mosquito nets, and now my students
want to do something similar at my school.

At half time, my students performed their drama for the crowd. This time I remembered to take photos. Aren't they adorable? I was so proud of them.

So remember:
1) Sleep under a Long-Lasting Insecticidal Net (LLIN) every night

2) Remove all stagnant water near your home

3) If you feel a fever or begin vomiting, you should immediately go the clinic and get tested for malaria

Happy World Malaria Day. Together we can stomp out malaria!