Mosquito nets for Kamuli

One of the aspects of my Rotary scholarship that I enjoy most is its incorporation of a service component. It’s a great way to take an incredible experience and add even more to it. I’ve been able to participate in a few rewarding service projects up to this point, like volunteering as a teacher at a local high school, painting a school in Kamuli, and pouring cement for a school in the Ssese Islands, and I've really enjoyed doing all of these things. However, since I came over in August I’ve been trying to find something a little bigger that could continue to make an impact on people’s lives after I leave. Something more…sustainable.

I’m happy to say that I’ve found what I was looking for. The idea came after discussions with my VEDCO contact at the Namasagali and Nakanyonyi Primary Schools, the schools that are participating in the pen pal exchange with Tracy’s 6th grade students in Gilbert. Tracy’s students wanted to collect some school supplies to send over, so I was asking what was most needed. Instead of being told pens or paper like I expected, I was informed that these kids needed mosquito nets more than anything else.

This statement prompted a little research, and I soon found out that only about 25 percent of the students at these schools had access to mosquito nets, which meant that nearly 1100 students out of 1400 had zero protection against malaria.

So what’s the big deal with mosquito nets? Since there currently is no vaccine for malaria, insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) are basically the only preventative measure that people here have against malaria (there are prophylactics that can be taken to reduce the chances of getting malaria, but they are expensive and take a toll on the liver if used for too long). When used properly, ITNs can reduce the spread of malaria by 90 percent.

Malaria is a major issue for students at these schools. If not treated properly (which requires money for medicine), the protozoa are never killed and the malaria becomes a recurrent illness. The recurrences cause multiple absences from school, which can often lead a child to fall so far behind that he/she must drop out. In the worst case scenarios, malaria can kill. In fact, malaria kills over 1,000,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa every year, with the vast majority of them being young children. That works out to being approximately one death every 30 seconds.

Obviously, something needs to be done to help with this problem. That’s where this idea comes in…

In a nutshell, I’m working to create a sustainable source of mosquito nets for these two schools through the ISU Center for Sustainable Rural Livelihoods (CSRL). Funds will be collected that will go to the ISU Foundation and start what will be a mosquito nets endowment. The principal will remain intact while the interest will be used to subsidize the price of approximately 150 mosquito nets each year, enough to cover all new, incoming students at the schools who would not have access to nets otherwise.

The net price will be subsidized to 1,000 Ugandan shillings (about $.60) from the original price of 10,000 shillings (about $6.00). This will hopefully avoid the stigma that can sometimes accompany handouts in a developing world context. I won't go into a long, drawn out explanation for why this is; basically handouts tend to remove any inherent value that an item might have had and can create a reliance that can ultimately does more harm than good.

This whole program will cost about $25,000. It sounds like a lot up front, but when all is said and done, this program will provide access to mosquito nets for all students at these two primary schools, thereby increasing their ability to attend school, get an education, and hopefully have a better chance at breaking out of the poverty trap into which they were born. And it is a sustainable program; once the money is raised, this program will have funds to operate in perpetuity. The great thing about doing this through ISU is that it will be introduced into a system that works, with people on the ground that have proven success in development work. And the coolest thing about going through CSRL is that this program will move with the organization. So twenty or thirty years down the road, when Kamuli is no longer in need of development assistance (which should be the case if the program works), this nets program will move with the entire CSRL program to another area in the world that does need development assistance.

I’ll admit right away that it is by no means my own personal creation. I’ve had plenty of help along the way, with numerous people at ISU and here in Uganda offering advice along the way. Without assistance from Rich Bundy at the ISU Foundation, Dr. David Acker with CSRL, and Benon Musasizi with VEDCO, this thing never would have come together. And I also owe thanks to Mitra Miri, another Rotary scholar in Uganda, who is going to Kamuli with me next weekend to help with a baseline study for getting a little more information about the current situation.

The main source of funding for this project is intended to be Rotary clubs, but – here’s the kicker – anyone can easily give to it! So, yes, I will admit that this is, in a way, a selfless plug for this project. But it’s a good project, so hopefully you won’t hold that against me!

The fund is already set up with the ISU Foundation, so giving to the program is as easy as writing a check to the ISU Foundation with “CSRL Mosquito Nets Project” in the memo line and sending it to the following address:

Iowa State University Foundation
2505 University Boulevard
P.O. Box 2230
Ames, IA 50010-2230

There’s also an online donation page set up for CSRL at http://www.srl.ag.iastate.edu/gift/. The option for giving to the mosquito nets project should be appearing on it very soon. And all donations are tax deductible!

Every little bit helps and, if we do run into the "problem" of raising more money than expected, we can just expand the program to include more at-risk individuals like pregnant women and younger children.

If you are interested in learning more about this project, just ask. I can send you plenty more information about its setup, accountability features, etc.

That’s all for now. Thanks for making it through my shameless plug!

Cheers!
Chris


P.S. Here are a few of the pictures of the kids from Kamuli that would benefit from this program. These were taken when I was visiting the schools last August with the ISU delgation.


A young girl with her younger sibling came to watch us while we were painting at Namasagali


The kids were waiting when we drove up to Nakanyonyi


Nakanyonyi students who had shown up to see the borehole (water well) that had been donated by CSRL being drilled for their school