“Sparking” Interest in Malaria
February 20th, 2008 at 9:41 am | posted by Martin.Edlund
American Idol winner Jordin Sparks is sitting on the concrete floor of the airport here in Accra, Ghana thumbing away at her iPhone when she’s approached for her first autograph. “Of course,” she says, flashing the brillian smile that helped her to win over millions of Idol voters. She’s delighted and a bit surprised to be recognized so far from home.
Jordin has come to Ghana with Malaria No More to participate in the President’s trip to Africa and learn more about malaria, a disease which kills an estimated 900,000 Africans each year, mostly children and pregnant mothers.
Last year’s Idol Gives Back charity special raised $75 million for charities in American and Africa, including $17 million to fight malaria. Malaria No More used part of that money to protect 2 million moms and kids with insecticide treated bed nets in Angola, Madagascar, Mali, Uganda, and Zambia. The President and Mrs. Bush appeared on last year’s Idol Gives Back to thank viewers for their support. Now Jordin’s here to return the favor.
Today, she’ll appear alongside the First Couple at a series of events highlighting the US President’s Malaria Initiative, a $1.2 billion five-year program operating in 15 African countries and is just getting underway here in Ghana. She’ll do a bed net demonstration alongside Mrs. Bush at a malaria clinic on the impoverished fringes of Accra this afternoon. On the drive back from the rehearsal yesterday, our photographer, a cheery Ghanaian named Jeff, said that households in the area are stricken with 1 malaria case every month on average, a consequence of their windowless cinderblock homes and lack of bed nets. Malaria accounts for 22% of deaths among children under five here in Ghana and 44% of health clinic visits.
Tomorrow, we’ll head out into the field with a USAID rep named Bethanne to see the impact of malaria on rural communities and get a look at what they’re doing to fight back. Stay tuned. And if you’d like to help make a different, donate $10 for a bed net at www.MalariaNoMore.org.
-Martin Edlund, Communications Director, Malaria No More
February 20th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I love what Jordan Sparks and others are doing in Ghana. I have been there twice and have many dear friends there. Malaria truly does hit at least one person in every family once a month there as well as many other diseases such as filaria, cholora, and food and water born diseases. It is very tragic.
The need is so great in Ghana, poverty in the northern part is extreemely bad because of draught and floods. Corruption is horrible, much money and aid is given to Ghana, but as in other african countries, it lines the pockets of government officials instead of helping the people. I feel that to stem some of the corruption, when the US, the World Bank, and other countries and organizations give money or aid to countries such as Ghana, they need to send someone along to oversee how that money is spent. To pay an observer to go and live in Ghana for the duration that the money is being used would mean much progress in Ghana.
Africans are the nicest people on the face of the earth. I have many African friends and they are the kindest, most caring, and loving people I know. You will hear over and over in Africa “I don’t have much, but I am happy that I do have a little more than many others!”.
I urge everyone who reads this to get the book “The End of Poverty” by Jeffry Sachs–it is one of the best books I have ever read regarding how to eleviate poverty in Africa