Africare in collaboration with Glisten International Academy under the platform of Power Forward recently carried out an outreach in commemoration of World Malaria Day at Jahi 1 village Community.
The program was designed to showcase the students leadership role in the fight against the epidemic of malaria.
The Power Forward project is a youth life skills and public health knowledge development programme which uses basketball as the convening platform to deploy its objectives.
Power Forward is funded by the ExxonMobil Foundation and is implemented across 30 secondary schools in the Federal Capital Territory by Africare in partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Dr. Patrick Adah, Director of Malaria Project for Africare said that the event was meant to “sensitize the public and to create awareness about different strategies for Malaria control, and to let them know malaria is preventable and can be treated”.
He said that it was a collaborative effort and that the Ministry of Health alone cannot handle it.
“Malaria should be everybody’s concern and that is why we are creating awareness so that everyone will join in the fight because it is only when we do it together that we can win the war against malaria”, he said.
Dr. Adah said that sleeping inside treated mosquito nets every night could reduce the malaria burden by 50 percent. He said that people need to get tested when they feel that they have malaria. He also said that the number of malaria cases in their health facility is on the decline.
Cross section of participants listen to speaker providing information on malaria
One of the beneficiaries of the event who spoke with frontlinenews.com correspondent said that the event is very important and she is really happy with the activities.
“I usually do self-medication but now I have gone through blood screening and by the time the results are out, I would be sure if it is malaria or not before I get treated”, she said.
The Power Forward Programme is in its fifth year and it is being implemented in selected schools in the FCT. The project has worked with over 1200 students and has impacted over 20,000 beneficiaries of student-led community initiatives teaching hygiene, HIV prevention and Malaria prevention.
He gave some preventive measures which he called Integrated Environmental Management.
They include using treated mosquito nets, prevention of mosquito breeding in our environment by getting rid of stagnant water.
As part of the activities for the World Malaria Day commemoration, Power Forward students would be holding a radio talk show to talk about Malaria prevention and strategies to generally inform the public on ways to beat Malaria.
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