Sarah Kline and Annemarie Meyer report back from Ghana
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Sarah and Annemarie with James Frimpong, NMCP Programme Officer
Last week we went out to Ghana to meet with the main partners we work with on the ground there. Many had just returned, exhausted but exhilarated to have completed the latest of Ghana’s regional net distribution campaigns.
We have joined with other partners and the government to help support these recent campaigns which have been distributing enough nets to cover everyone in Ghana’s Eastern and Volta regions. This was no small undertaking, involving over 15,000 volunteers from local communities to distribute and hang nets in every home as well as providing education on malaria prevention. It was great to meet with the teams involved in coordinating these campaigns – we will be putting up Real Life Stories from some of the people we met over the coming weeks.
We also joined future planning discussions with the National Malaria Control Programme and its key partners to discuss how we are each going to help support the next regional campaigns. There is still a lot more to do, but it was great to confirm everyone’s commitment to the goal of universal net coverage in Ghana by the end of 2012 – if not sooner.
Progress so far
Dr Keziah Malm, Deputy Programme Manager and Ms Aba Baffoe Wilmot Vector Control Manager, NMCP, check household registration books with volunteers in Volta region
We are really excited that, through these campaigns, Ghana has so far distributed over 2.5 million nets to cover five million people across three regions – that’s around a fifth of Ghana’s population now covered.
It is estimated that each net hung will be used by at least two people to cover them as they sleep, helping protect them from the bites of malaria carrying mosquitoes.
Our investment in Ghana
We are part of a great consortium of partners who have come together to support this effort under the leadership of the Ghanaian Government’s National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP).
The consortium includes various implementing partners working on the ground to deliver these campaigns. Each partner is able to bring different skills and experience to support the campaign efforts. We work with a mix of partners to support different elements of the campaign: in Northern and Eastern regions, for example, we funded volunteer mobilisation, training and supervision efforts through NetsforLife and a local development organisation ADDRO. Read more about one of these volunteers, Edward
The key funders of Ghana’s net distribution campaigns are the US President’s Malaria Initiative (PMI) and the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID), along with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the World Bank. Malaria No More UK is part of this group and we keep in close contact with other partners, including the lead staff at DFID and PMI based in Ghana.
Moving forward
Two volunteers from Eastern Region Campaign with equipment ready to undertake net hang up
There are seven regions still to be covered by these net campaigns. We also need to revisit the first region covered, Northern Region, where nets were distributed to protect the most vulnerable (pregnant women and children under five) to top up net distributions to cover everyone who needs a net.
We are going to be following up on last week’s meetings with each of the Ghana partners to agree the timing of the next net campaigns. We will also work with them to ensure our money and support is directed where it can best help.
Our biggest contribution to the national campaign – ironically – is our size. We are small and nimble which means working alongside our much larger partners, we can target our funds strategically to fill in gaps and make sure the net distributions get out as quickly as possible.
We hope to help fund at least one more distribution before the end of this year – but we might be able to support up to three!
How you can help
We would love you to spread the word about the great work in Ghana – we really are having success in getting people under nets and helping protect them against malaria! Right now you can join the team to Beat The Mozzy – become a fan on facebook, follow us on Twitter and spread the message to your friends and colleagues. Check out MNMTV too for videos about our work in Ghana and to learn more about malaria.
We also need to raise more funds to be able to help further support these net distributions so we can help Ghana reach its goal and cover everyone with a net. Our next fundraising challenge will be taking part in the adidas Women’s 5K Challenge on 11 September when we will have a team of around 20 runners!
Take a look at how you can help by making a donation or getting involved and raising money.
[...] money that you and other supporters are donating during this week’s Challenge, is going to help vital work that I saw firsthand on a recent visit to our partners in Ghana, West [...]
Firstly I would like to say how much I support more funds for malaria control in Ghana, and using 15,000 local volunteers to roll out bed nets. Malaria is an easily treatable and preventable disease, it is tragic that many children continue to die unnecessarily, not to mention costs to education and productivity as well. I urge donors to continue funding and momentum to achieve full coverage of bed nets by 2012, without reaching this goal efforts so far would be redundant.
I am really interested though, about the level of education that goes along with the distribution of nets. From my experience, bed nets are being under-utilized despite accessibility. How challenging have you found this, and how have you estimated that every bed net is being used by two people ?