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A costumed mosquito menaces a dance mob during a World Malaria Day observance on April 25 at the 2012 United Methodist General Conference in Tampa, Fla. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.

BY LINDA WORTHINGTON
UMCONNECTION STAFF

TAMPA - Two bishops, one from the United States and one from Sierra Leone, sat side by side in agreement at the effectiveness of the Imagine No Malaria campaign as the General Conference of The United Methodist Church observed World Malaria Day, April 25.

Bishop Thomas Bickerton of the West Pennsylvania Annual Conference is chair of the global malaria eradication campaign, started as Nothing but Nets by the United Methodist General Conference four years ago when he pulled a $10 bill from his pocket "to buy a mosquito net." The delegates and visitors soon pitched in and the campaign was started.

"It is now more than bed nets," Bickerton said. Through The United Methodist Church (UMCOR) and its partners, including the United Nations Foundation, health workers are trained to go into villages and teach the recipient families how to use the nets to prevent mosquitoes from biting the sleeping children, the most vulnerable and susceptible to the mosquito's bite. There is a widespread education campaign that accompanies the distribution of the nets, to encourage those bitten to get to hospitals for treatment, and advocacy to governments at all levels, urging support and funding.

"Our churches are the most trusted delivery systems in Africa," Bickerton said. The campaign by all standards has been successful. One million bednets have been delivered and 5,000 community workers trained. "When we began this campaign, we said every 30 seconds a child dies from malaria in Africa; now it is every 60 seconds," Bickerton said. "We still have 500,000 people dying each year."

Malaria is worse than AIDS. Treatment now makes it possible for someone to live with AIDS for 10 years or more, but malaria kills in a few days and it attacks women and children.  "We call malaria the ‘weapon of mass destruction'," said Bishop John Yambatsu, from Sierra Leone. "I'm proud to be part of this campaign because I know what it does," he added.

Whereas people in Africa in the past viewed going to the hospital as a death sentence, or it was perhaps 20 or 30 miles to the closest one, today, the people know malaria is treatable and curable, Yambatsu said. With the help of The United Methodist Church, "we can wage an all-out war against malaria," he said. The church has built the major hospitals in the country and many clinics. And community workers go into the villages.  With the help of Imagine No Malaria, "all the hospitals now have effective systems on malaria."

Training and equipping indigenous people as community workers has helped to develop the holistic systems now in place in Sierra Leone and other countries. "We won't send funds (to countries) without the delivery systems in place," Bickerton said.

"Now families know they can go to the hospital and clinics when the children get sick – and they get treatment," Yambatsu said.

To learn more or find out how you can help, visit the website.  

Ten dollars, the cost in the U.S. of buying one bednet, helps three or four children, not just one, he added.

It was the efforts of Elisabeth Clymer, a high school senior, who in the eighth grade found the Nothing but Nets campaign to be her cause célèbre, and she's stuck with it, raising thousands of dollars. She developed the SWAT teams that many schools use to raise funds, and she visits congress people, asking for support for the Global Health Initiative. Clymer urged all of us to use the existing function on cellphones to sign a petition to the US government and make a $10 contribution (by texting 2722).

Partners (organizations) are the only way global issues like malaria eradication get accomplished, said Michael Pajonk, a representative of the United Nations Foundation. "The churches in rural Africa are in places no one else will go," he said. "The church is the only one that can reach these people … and the United Methodist Church is wide spread."

"We're changing the world one bed net, one family, one life at a time," Bickerton said. "We're not done yet (but) a day is coming when we can truly "imagine no malaria."