It occurs to me that I told everyone in Uganda what I did
for World Malaria Month (April), but not everyone at home! So let’s fix that.
In late March I attended a workshop which mainly focused on
HIV/AIDS awareness and activities, but also focused a small amount on malaria.
We were encouraged to do malaria activities in our schools and communities to
raise awareness and educate people on the disease. I, with another staff member
at my school, co-planned a week of college activities involving the students
and the staff.
On Monday April 21, we had a Health Officer from Yumbe
hospital come to do a general talk about malaria. HO’s are like emissaries from
the hospital who work with VHTs (village health teams) to educate Ugandans,
especially in rural areas, about healthy habits and preventing disease. Save
any outside organization loaning management help, VHT’s are comprised of only
Ugandan nationals.
Tuesday, the students organized skits around malaria myths
and facts. I had wanted them to do it completely on their own, but to make sure
they got the correct information I gave some example situations. For example, a
man is told by a doctor that he should sleep under a net every night. The man
says he is strong, has had malaria before, and is okay, so why should he? The
answer we’re looking for at that point is something like, just because you
survive malaria doesn’t mean your family will. If a mosquito bites you and you
have malaria, then it can be passed to your children, your elderly relatives,
or people who are immuno-comprimised
like people with HIV or AIDS. Other myths include that sleeping under a
net will give you cancer, malaria is spread through saliva, and malaria is
spread through sexual contact.
Wednesday, we had a demonstration of how to hang the net on
the dorm beds provided here. They also talked about how to hang the nets when
you don’t have four poster beds. Many people who live in huts just sleep on
mattresses on the ground, and so it’s much easier to hang a net from a single
point on the roof. To do this, they gather the top of the net with rope or by
placing a bucket lid underneath and hanging it from that. We also talked about
repairing nets and washing them. They actually need to be washed about every 4
months to reactivate the insecticides. Only about 13% of Ugandans currently
sleep under nets, which is a ridiculously small amount. As a facilitator at one
of my workshops said, mosquitoes live less than a month. So basically if the
whole country slept under nets for at least a month, malaria would be almost
wiped out.
Thursday, we had another skit in the form of a radio show
(they unironically love drama and skits and music here, which I love). Some of
the students posed as local health authorities, nurses, doctors, district
health officers, politicians, etc. Then they called on the audience to have
“callers” into the show. Radio has a large presence in Uganda, mostly because
it’s an oral culture, and because lots of people don’t read. They especially
don’t read their local language. So lots of broadcasts are in multiple
languages and they even have BBC World Service at 6pm each night. I still need
to get a working radio, because even though most phones come with FM radio
transmitters, it’s not powerful enough to pick up the signal for BBC. Sad day.
Friday was the culmination of our activities, when we had a
sort of a game show program, which probably would have worked better if the
students were split into groups. (There are 450 students at my college, and
most of them showed up at the event on Friday.) We also drew names for giving
out new mosquito nets to the student body. Unfortunately the grant I received
for my activities didn’t cover buying nets for the entire student body, so I bought
35 and said I’d look for funding for the rest. My hope is to by the time I
leave, have a storage and checkout system so that all students who come to the
college have a net to use while they’re here.
The entire week was exhausting, but the results were good. I
got good feedback from my students and staff. Peace Corps Africa had a
competition in April among the countries to do lots of malaria activities (each
activity had a point value). Uganda ended up winning! Makes me proud to be in
Peace Corps. For a while I thought competition was silly as a motivator, but
knowing that we were competing against all the other countries made me want to
do more and more.
Malaria isn’t just an April problem, but an always problem.
So while I’m thrilled with all the things I did, I look forward to doing more,
multiple times a year. I urge you to donate to organizations which provide
nets, malaria education, or anyone who is researching a vaccine (which would be
awesome!). And thanks for reading.
