District 6380 and Ridgetown Rotary Club Update on Anti-Malaria Project in Tanzania
Posted by John Borst
on Apr 01, 2011
by PDG Terry Youlton, District 6380(Southwestern, Ontario [8] & adjacent US [44])
District 5550 and D5550 clubs contribute $7,842.50 to the anti-malaria project
With all the press hype about malaria and even the Rotary publications talking the talk, I have not seen anything about the Ridgetown, Ontario club’s project to purchase, distribute and hang 118,000 long-life, treated, and malaria nets in more than 500 boarding schools in Tanzania.
Tanzania is a jungle country in lower, central Africa and is considered having the second highest infection rate of malaria in the world. The population of Tanzania is approximately 35M and they have more than 100,000 deaths per year from the disease.Less than 10 percent of the country is cultivated, yet the standard of education is more than 85 percent.
When our project started in 2007, the government agency in charge of malaria in Tanzania (NATNETS) was exercising a very strong “NO FREE NETS” policy and
were purchasing very cheap ($1.18 each) untreated mosquito net from local suppliers, packaging the net with an envelope of pesticide (likely DDT) and retailing it for $5.
The World Health Organization did a survey and found that
less than 2 percent of these untreated nets were ever treated with the
insecticide.
More than 85 percent of the hospital beds in Tanzania were
used for malaria patients.Rotary managed to get NATNETS to allow Rotary to
distribute free nets to orphanages, hospitals, prisons, street children's homes
and boarding schools. The nets were to become the property of the institutions
and not the individuals.
The Canadian government (CIDA) agreed to donate C$190,000
to this project if Canadian Rotarians, clubs, districts and The Rotary
Foundation would come through with matching funds. Canadian Rotarians and their
clubs came up with $192,251, District Directed Funds added another $70,386, and
TRF added $166,462.
American clubs and Rotarians added another $5,000. This
totals over C$600,000.
Originally, Tanzanian Rotarians were to hang the nets and
educate the teachers and students about nets and malaria. A local charitable
organization (PSI) had agreed to distribute the nets free of charge. However, we soon found out that the 17 small Rotary clubs
in Tanzania would not be able to cover the 435,000 square miles and hang the 118,000
nets; it was just not physically possible and no expense money could be allocated
to the Rotarians.
PSI quickly agreed to canvas each school for the number
and type of nets required, deliver the nets, provide the necessary education,
provide any hardware needed to hang the nets and get any pictures, signatures
and necessary proof of this projects success for CICRD and TRF. PSI agreed to
do all of this at no cost to Rotary.
The nets that we are providing have cost us less than
US$5. All the nets are purchased from Against Malaria Foundation, a charitable
organization that has a world‐class reputation for successfully delivering nets
to any place in the world where their donors specify. The nets are actually
purchased from A to Z Textile Manufactures in Arusha, Tanzania.This project has not happened without problems. The road
system in Tanzania is horrible, so naturally, the rainy seasons mean a complete
halt to delivery. The same thing goes for school vacations, holidays, etc.
Most of the students in Tanzania go to boarding schools.
These are not ritzy buildings for rich kids. Many of these dormitories are
simply steel‐roofed sheds without screenson the windows. Many smaller
children sleep three to a bunk bed.
However, with 99,000 nets hung over beds, we are able to see a
definite decrease in the number of malaria cases.
This has been a long, tough project to manipulate but it proves that
our motto “SERVICE ABOVE SELF” is something to strive for.
Our Ridgetown Rotary Club sponsored the four Matching Grants that were
necessary for this huge project to move forward.
District 6380 provided $12,000 of District Directed Funds and our
district clubs donated $6,129.
Thanks, everyone, for your help.