Yesterday we blogged about Jessica Uno, a junior at Stanford University who is reporting on the ground in Kenya through Malaria No More. In the past few days, Jessica has been posting some terrific and insightful accounts of what she’s seen, including this report from Mwea Mission Hospital.

Excerpts from the post below. You can continue follow Jessica’s trip in real time on MNM’s Buzzwords Blog here.

Once we arrived at Mwea, we met Dr. John, director of the Vector Control Center at Mwea Mission Hospital. The outdoor hospital is four hours away from the next hospital and served a large patient body. The large rice paddies in that region force hospitals to be far apart. Dr. John and Jane told us about how they had reduced malaria occurrences to almost 0% in the area surrounding the hospital, through a combination of prevention and treatment measures. They pushed large campaigns to encourage the community to consistently sleep under pesticide-treated bed nets and made sure powerful ACTs were readily available for those with malaria. A large problem in applying our existing tools for fighting malaria is patient compliance. You can give a bed net to family, but if left alone, families will often misuse them or use them inconsistently. The same goes true with ACTs – often patients feel better after a day or two of treatment and stop taking their medicines. Creative strategies are necessary to motivate consistent net usage and compliance with malaria treatments. One of Mwea’s strategies includes portraying nets as “fashionable,” by having respected community leaders show friends and families that the frequently using nets are critical to avoiding mosquitoes. Malaria is preventable and not a fact of life, using the slogan “mosquito out, we are in the net together!” Rather than imposing the nets on the community, Mwea Mission Hospital was successful in encouraging net use in culturally sensitive, sustainable ways that actively involved community members.

Ready to help kick malaria out of Africa? Then make sure to check out United Against Malaria’s (UAM) new website.

Soccer stars, foundations, governments, and corporations are all joining forces ahead of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa to unite against malaria. And don’t forget the NGOs, too, including UAM’s founding partners ONE, PATH, Malaria No More, Roll Back Malaria, Comic Relief, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Population Services International and the United Nations Foundation, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. By leveraging soccer—one of the most popular sports in the world—UAM aims to raise global awareness and renew worldwide commitment to ending malaria.

So what can you do to join in the cause? Visit the UAM website and sign the virtual soccer ball to show your support. Read all the latest news on the UAM blog (don’t miss the behind-the-scenes post with U.S. Soccer Men’s National Team Captain Landon Donovan), play the “World Cup Soccer Challenge: Kick Malaria” game on Facebook, even add a UAM twibbon (a colorful football) to the bottom of your twitter avatar. Check out their new site today!

If you have a few minutes today, be sure to check out the Physicians for Peace blog which in recent weeks has been posting correspondence from Robin Jones. She is a Registered Nurse and Women’s Health Care Nurse Practitioner who has been working with local clinics to assist in midwifery education.

It’s a fascinating, on-the-ground look at the progress being made to improve child and maternal health. You can read her reports here.

Jessica Uno, a junior at Stanford University, recently won the “World Briefing: Telling the Malaria Story” contest, earning her a spot on the frontlines of the malaria fight. This week, she will be reporting from the 2009 MIM (Multilateral Initiative on Malaria Pan-African) Conference in Nairobi, Kenya.

Jessica will interview malaria experts and journalists; learn about new technologies and approaches to fighting the disease; and travel to a local clinic for an insider’s perspective on the malaria fight. She will report back on her findings and experiences via guest blog posts on our Buzzwords Blog and she’ll be Tweeting regularly from her Malaria No More twitter name, @JunoMNM.

The World Briefing contest is co-sponsored by Malaria No More and Novartis Pharmaceutical Corporation and raises awareness about the race to save lives.

Be sure to check Jessica’s blog posts and follow her on Twitter to get the inside scoop on the latest news and trends from the front-lines of the global effort to end malaria deaths.

Africare, a partner organization devoted to improving lives and building futures, also tells the stories of individuals making a difference in Africa. Enter “Pass It On”. Through a new series of 16 videos, one featured each month, Africare hopes to connect the development work Africans are doing in different countries. Certain challenges, including access to clean water and the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS are being met through community efforts to battle poverty and disease.

This month, meet Alassane and see the wonderful work he is doing in Mali. You can find more info and the inspiring clips here.

Dear ONE members,

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to give kids worldwide a fighting chance against pneumonia. Go to www.missionpneumonia.org, and play Save the Children’s new game. Find out about childhood pneumonia and how Save the Children works to help parents and community health workers overcome obstacles to treating a child whose life hangs in the balance.

On November 2, 2009, Save the Children is joining with other groups worldwide to bring attention to the terrible toll that pneumonia takes in developing countries. A child dies of pneumonia every 15 seconds. That comes to about 2 million lives lost each year. But, with your help, more than 1 million lives could be saved by making affordable health measures available – including vaccines, and antibiotics – and by bringing health care closer to children’s homes. That’s just what Save the Children is doing every day to save children’s lives in 40 countries.

Now we’re enlisting you to help us prevent pneumonia from striking susceptible children and protecting their lives when it does. Here’s how:

• Play the game at www.missionpneumonia.org Learn what it takes to fight pneumonia around the world by taking our quiz.
• Sign the petition. Show your elected officials that you support expanding the reach of life-saving tools – vaccines, antibiotics and trained health workers – to more mothers and babies in poor countries.
  Pneumonia is the #1 killer of children under age 5, taking more lives than malaria, AIDS and measles combined. By accepting this mission, you can help keep kids healthy.

Thank you so much for your support,

-Mary Beth Powers, Campaign Chief, Survive to 5

Check out the latest partner post for our Food Security in Focus series, this time from Oxfam America. The post below describes an innovative way that Ethiopian farmers are dealing with the effects of climate change. Also be sure to check out an amazing video/slideshow by clicking on either of the images below.

-Kara Arsenault

Medhin Reda’s is an all-girl house—Medhin and three of her daughters. I knew the moment she brushed aside her daughter’s warning to dress up for her western visitors that I would like her enormously. She had just rushed in from weeding the corn patch, and she came to greet us outside her stone-walled hut high on a hill in Adi Ha—and as soon as she could, she would be back in that corn patch finishing the job.
All work. All day.

That’s the life of single mothers like Medhin here in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where climate change is taking its toll. The rainfall is becoming increasingly erratic and making a living from the rocky soil is backbreaking and never certain. Drought can easily wipe out a season’s efforts. And hunger often follows.
But this year, Medhin, 45, has a plan. Though she doesn’t have a penny to pay for it, she has bought herself a small package of weather insurance. It’s for her teff, the tiny grain grown across Ethiopia that’s the base for a pancake-like bread called injera. If enough rain fails to fall at a certain time, the insurance will provide Medhin with a payout to cover some of her losses.

It’s a new initiative launched by Oxfam America and a host of local partners, including the Relief Society of Tigray. And its genius is in its accessibility to the poorest of the poor. Those who don’t have cash—and many don’t—can pay for their premiums with the single most important asset they do have: their sweat. Two hundred small farmers in Adi Ha signed up for the insurance; 65 percent of them are swapping work for premiums. They’ll be tackling projects that make them less vulnerable to drought.

Medhin is trading 24 days of labor for the comfort of knowing that if her teff crop fails for lack of rain, her family will get critical assistance in its time of need. The insurance will make sure of that.

“It’s good for me to have the insurance as long as I can work and pay with labor,” she said before heading back to her corn patch. “That is the only asset I have.”

-Coco McCabe, Oxfam America

Photos courtesy of Eva-Lotta Jansson/Oxfam America

Today I came across two reports from two different organizations on the ground in Uganda that I thought would be of interest to readers.

The first is from Nothing But Nets and documents the distribution of malaria nets in Tetugu, a camp managed by the UN Refugee Agency, and a neighboring village. Lynda Commale, who authored the piece, concludes:

My hope is that after this observation trip, we can better understand the need for nets in the communities we visited. I cannot say this clearly enough — mosquito nets, treated with insecticide, are the best prevention against malaria.

The International Rescue Committee’s blog offers another account from Uganda on the work of the IRC to help hundreds of children and former child laborers go to school for the first time.

Joanne Offer writes about their work:

Today, Lakot attends primary school in Kitgum, thanks to a unique program run by the IRC called LEAP— Livelihoods, Education and Protection to End Child Labor. Across north and northeast Uganda, the IRC is paying the school fees of children and former child laborers, repairing school buildings, installing latrines, constructing new houses for teachers, and training teachers to become better instructors.

“Since the IRC started helping us, school enrollment has gone up,” said Nadutuka Daniela, the head teacher at the Loodoi Primary school in the district of Moroto. “The IRC is paying fees and has given materials—books and uniforms—that parents can’t afford. People are so happy about it.”

Each piece is definitely worth a read.

This past weekend the NAACP state conference was held in Manhattan Beach. Celebrating its 100 year anniversary of ensuring social equality for African Americans and all who have faced social injustices, the NAACP pressed forward with an exciting theme: “Reflections of Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.” Founded in 1909 in New York City by a group of black and white citizens committed to social justice, the National Associate for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is the nation’s largest and strongest civil rights organization. Today the NAACP is a network of more than 2,200 affiliates covering all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Japan and Germany. The California State NAACP boasts 72 branches and youth units mobilized across the state to help ensure racial justice and equality.

Zephanii Smith, NAACP Youth and College Division President, invited ONE to contribute to their “CODE RED” program targeting young adults. The program featured organizations speaking to young Americans about local and global HIV/Aids. A group called “Positive Secrets” highlighted the event with a series of skits, written and directed by Melanie Curtis Andrews. The self titled play was inspired by true stories of HIV positive Americans before, during and after their HIV positive diagnosis. Through a medley of song and dance, the troop mesmerized the young audience while providing a simple message: get tested often and protect yourself always.

ONE’s message built upon this incredible performance by asking the audience to expand their knowledge of the same disease beyond their own neighborhoods. Twenty-two million Africans suffer from HIV/Aids, and while PEPFAR helped raised the number of treated patients from 50,000 to over 3 million, there are still many more people who need antiretroviral medication immediately. The young adults received ONE bands, signed up for ONE via text message, and were encouraged to visit our site to learn more about what ONE members do to advocate on behalf of others around the world.

I want to thank Zephanii Smith for recognizing the battle against HIV/Aids, while an imperative fight here at home, extends beyond our borders. With our invitation, Zephanii expressed the important role global education plays in protecting ourselves, as well as our local and global community. Make sure to check out the clip of Zephanii and other attendees.

-Roscoe Mapps, ONE Organizer, California

Here’s another partner post for our Food Security in Focus series, this time from USAID’s West Africa Trade Hub. The West Africa Trade Hub works directly with West African companies, helping them become more competitive in the world market by linking them to buyers who assist in product development. The post below is from Paully Appea-Kubi , the founder of Ebenut, a company that produces dried fruit mixes in Accra, Ghana. With help from an American food distribution company, Ebenut will soon introduce dried jollof rice and dried gari foto dishes to U.S. supermarkets. Her story demonstrates the importance of market access and agricultural value chains in establishing food security.

-Kara Arsenault

I started Ebenut by myself in 1996. I have a food science background and I like to experiment with food. I asked a farmer if he could supply me with pineapples and it was a good match: he needed a market for the pineapples that he did not export or were rejected, but were still fine for drying. I had one dryer and I used my own money to start Ebenut. After six months, I added two people. Eight months later, I hired five more.

Today, I have 35 people. I’m getting mangoes from 15 farmers, pineapples from 12, papayas from 2 and I have four suppliers of coconuts. The farmers are expanding and their workers are better paid because they have a reliable market for their fruits—they know there’s a constant buyer.

Jollof rice is very common in Ghana—we use it at our parties, we eat it for lunch, we serve it at weddings and funerals. We use a spicy pepper, oil, tomato and local seasonings. We then mix it up with rice and cook it. I took the recipe from there, drying it in order to preserve it and make it easy to prepare. Gari foto is very much like jollof, but instead of rice we use gari, or cassava, that has been dried. It’s very convenient—you just add water and a prepared tomato sauce.

I’m working with a rice factory in the Volta Region. They buy from about 100 growers. So I work with those farmers indirectly, creating a market for their grain. I’m also working with rice growers in the north, where rice farming is done mostly by women.

Last year, I met Jim Thaller of Talier Trading Group. He told me that he wanted a locally prepared dish to go on to the U.S. market. I developed a dried jollof rice dish (reported in Tradewinds, the Trade Hub’s monthly newsletter) and a dried gari foto for supermarkets across the U.S. It was important to have Jim’s help. While we were telling his group about the local dish, they tasted it to see whether it would be suitable for the market. The names, the packaging design—these were all very important. He encouraged us. My fear was that we would spend all this money, invest all of this time and then it wouldn’t go very well. Jim had high hopes.

I know Americans like foods that are easy to prepare and are tasty. It’s very colorful and the fact that you can serve it with other foods makes it versatile. It takes about 5 minutes to make it and it’s very nutritious. I think they’ll really like it. It’s an exciting time for me.

-Paully Appea-Kubi