Malaria Initiative

Poverty, hunger and poor health are all parts of a vicious cycle of hopelessness. Poor people are more likely to be hungry and suffer ill health. People who are hungry and sick are not able to meet their earning potential through productive and regular work. It’s a trap that can keep people poor, hungry and sick for generations.

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"I learned how to keep my children safe from malaria." Fatoumata Monomata, Burkina Faso

This powerful combination of services acts like a ladder out of poverty, hunger and ill health—with each step leading to a life of self-reliance, health and hope.

In the summer of 2002, Freedom from Hunger presented pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline with a proposal to use Credit with Education to battle one of the greatest challenges of people living in poor, tropical areas: malaria. GSK engages in the fight against malaria on three fronts: the development and manufacture of anti-malarial drugs, the pursuit of an effective malaria vaccine, and initiatives to build the capacity of poor communities to fight the disease directly. With a major grant from its African Malaria Partnership program, GSK supported Freedom from Hunger's anti-malaria initiative in six West African countries.

Components of the Initiative

The Malaria Initiative, now under way, includes several components. The first is an education module that engages women in dialogue about how malaria is spread, who is most vulnerable to its ravages, how to recognize the disease in its early stages when it can be effectively treated, and how to prepare dosages of anti-malarial drugs in amounts appropriate for very young children. The education module also emphasizes the importance of sleeping under insecticide-treated bednets and how to organize action to safeguard communities. Since many of the women participating in Credit with Education can neither read nor write, the education is presented in a series of learning sessions that explore new ideas through role play, story and song.

Another component of the program is the subsidized distribution of insecticide-treated bednets. Freedom from Hunger brokered deals with manufacturers and distributors of the nets so women can buy them at a substantially reduced cost (about $4 per net). In a recent visit to program areas in Burkina Faso, many of the women had already purchased the nets and the rest said they were setting aside money so that they could buy them soon. Freedom from Hunger also worked to establish linkages to local sources of appropriate and reliable anti-malarial drugs, which women can purchase directly when malaria strikes.

And there is one more benefit: since the anti-Malaria Initiative is layered onto existing Credit with Education programs, it is sustainable.

Freedom from Hunger has trained local partners -- credit unions and rural banks -- to implement Credit with Education, including the Malaria Initiative, for the long term. The women themselves cover the local costs of operating the program through the earnings generated on their loan repayments. Impacts of the program will be carefully measured through a study being conducted in Ghana. GlaxoSmithKline made an additional grant to cover the cost of the study, which will compare the effects of the program against control communities nearby.

GlaxoSmithKline
Africa Malaria
Partnership.