You can’t outrun a mosquito – but you CAN hide.
Online volunteers of Nabuur.com combat malaria through social networks
A thousand-mile journey starts with a single step, they say. In this case, a journey spanning the globe starts with a click as Emmanuel, an agricultural Engineer from Uganda, logs onto Nabuur.com.
Soon after posting his message – a request for help outlining his mission to cut death-rates from Malaria in his home village of Wakitaka – his entry is read by a health-worker in a neighbouring village. Two hours later an economics graduate turns on her laptop in a European café. Click. Ideas and offers of expertise pour in from around the world. Click, click, click.
This is Nabuur – a community of impassioned online volunteers who refuse to say “it can’t be helped.” When ordinary people put their unique expertise and energies to extraordinary use, virtually anything is possible. For villagers in Emmanuel’s home village, this means no longer suffering debilitating, and frequently fatal, bouts of malaria.
Emmanuel’s vision takes shape. A collaboration is formed between Wakitaka and neighbouring Mawoito and Jinja Central villages. Funds will be raised to provide 1,000 vulnerable families with mosquito nets and to educate them about malaria prevention and treatment. Efforts will focus on protecting children, 350 of whom are killed by Malaria in Uganda every day. “Most families do not cover their children with treated nets due to lack of funds and information,” says Emmanuel. Tonny Ulambe, Nabuur representative and founder of a centre caring for orphaned children, adds: “the government doesn’t take it on itself to provide for vulnerable children here. Their communities must protect them.”
TweetANet gives private donors a way to help ground-level activists like Tonny by harnessing social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter to reach donors and spread the campaign’s message: for just 2 euros – less than the price of a latte – you can protect a child from malaria.
“Both Nabuur and the TweetANet fundraiser are based on the belief that anyone with a computer can contribute and make a difference in villages that have not been reached by the big donors so far,“ says Maria Zandt, TweetANet organizer.
It’s working.
As of April 15th private donors have funded about 170 mosquito nets. This means 170 families protected from this deadly, but preventable, disease. This means children back in school, parents relieved of costly medical expenses. This means healthy communities contributing income to other Nabuur projects such as local education and income-generation initiatives.
These donors – ordinary people with access to the internet – are making an extraordinary difference. You can join them by logging onto betterplace.org and making a donation or simply by spreading the word and becoming an advocate in support of TweetANet.
Capuccino?
I think I’ll pass.