These are a small sample of the things people are doing to raise nets that have caught our eye recently. There is a huge range of activities from sports, arts, music and special events through to some frankly very odd ones.
|
The World Swim Against Malaria is our original awareness and fundraising activity, but its success has lead to other organisations and individuals approaching us, looking to incorporate their own fundraising ideas into our infrastructure. This is something we are very happy to accommodate. One such initiative is Madness Against Malaria, which ran a very successful campaign in 2007 and is about to launch the final stages of its 2008 competition. Madness Against Malaria was set up in the US by Lance Laifer (you can read this NY Times piece for more information on Lance and the Madness initiative). It is a competitive fundraising competition, loosely based on the popular March Madness NCCA Basketball competition. The idea is that you enter a team and see how much money you can raise, during a qualifying period, using the sponsorship page you create on the Madness website. When qualifying ends (14 March 2008 for this year) the top 64 teams go into a series of knock-out rounds where they compete, one-on-one over a two week period, to see how much money they raise. During these early rounds you can have some unlikely pairings - for example a primary school could be drawn against an investment bank. It is a game of strategy because if you raise all your money too early you may exhaust your ability to compete in the knock-out stages. Currently, there are 73 teams battling it out to qualify for the knock-out stages - which will be drawn on 14 March. (Check-out the teams here). It's not too late to enter, especially since you do not necessarily need to have raised a great deal of money to get through to the knock-out stages, which is when the fun really starts. We will keep you up-to-speed with the highlights once the knock-out rounds begin.
|
 Tony Linossi, a sprightly 79 year old from Dandenong, Australia, swam in the 2005 World Swim. This time he has got together with some friends and already they have reached a total of over AUS$8,700 (US$7,500) plus a feature in the local paper.
|
Todd Lawson and Christina Tottle, two Canadian adventure motorcycle travellers, are about to set off on a trip across Africa to raise money for bed nets. We have created a special logo for their trip - Motos Against Malaria - something we can do for any group or organisation which has a large enough initiative they want to organise using the Against Malaria process. Check out their fundraising page here
Here is an email just received from them in South Africa. They are planning to distribute personally some of the bed nets their money has helped fund. Hey Rob....all is good,spent a great week in Cape Town, now we're in JHB, picking up our bikes soon and will be hitting the road in 10 days or so. Yamaha SA is really excited about the mission, they've invited us on a big ride with hundreds of other riders and they're also doing a magazine article on us so a good opp. to spread the word here in SA. We're topped $5000 CDN mark! Wondering how logistics are coming along. I guess the first pick-up /delivery destination would be good so we can plan route accordingly. no rush tho, we won't be leaving SA until mid/end of March...another month/6 weeks or so. Thanks Rob, hope you're well, T&T We will post any updates or pictures we receive from them as their journey develops.
|
 We ask our all distribution partners to take video footage of nets being distributed. This is part of our whole transparency ethos and we feel it is an important part of connecting the people providing the solution to the people facing the problem. Here is a gem of a video from a distribution in Kenya.
It relates to a distribution in Lokichogio that took place back in March last year and it is beautifully done, with some real care taken in editing and providing a soundtrack. It gives a very good feel of what we are all about. You can see more information about this distribution on our website. As with all of our distributions, this page will show you all the relevant information, from the people whose fundraising made the distribution possible through to the proposals and post-distribution reports from AMREF, the distribution partner. This is a fundamental part of our commitment to absolute transparency and accountability as well as providing the tangible proof that 100 per cent of the funds raised is used to buy nets.
|
All 230 pupils at Kensington Preparatory School (KPS) are organising a swim as part of the 2008 World Swim Against Malaria. The first half of the school swam last week and have already raised an amazing £4,700. The second half of the school swim next week. One hundred per cent of the funds raised will buy nets to be distributed in the Navrongo region of northern Ghana where KPS has a ‘link’ school, the Navro-Pungu School. People in this area are desperately in need of nets.
|
Here is the Economists' recent take on a WHO report for the Global Fund which demonstrates the effectiveness of the free distribution of bed nets in fighting malaria.
|
Welcome to the Against Malaria Foundation's Information Hub.
This a place we have created to help get the message out about how to fix malaria and in particular to promote participation in our 2008 World Swim Against Malaria. We are using this site as an on-line press office but also as a place which anyone can use to find out what we are doing.
The posts that follow will be very varied, from brief updates on the latest fundraising activities that people are organising through to more in-depth features about malaria and reports back from our partners working in the field distributing nets.
Here is more information on how to use the Information Hub and here is some more information about us. Please also check-out our main participation sites AgainstMalaria.com and WorldSwimAgainstMalaria.com
At the end of the day, we want to get the maximum number of people involved in fixing malaria, be that through organising a swim, an event of your own choosing or simply through subscribing to this site and passing the word on. Please join us in the fight against malaria.
|