NGOs take Malaria Eradication Advocacy Programme to Super Eagles camp, Seek to Raise 15 million Nets

World Malaria map

Diana Okon-Effiong, Calabar

A malaria eradication advocacy programme that seeks  to shore up support for prevention of the scourge in Nigeria have been taken to the Super Eagles camp in Calabar.

Our correspondent reports that the programme was anchored by two NGOs, Global Dream Foundation Nigeria and Sustainable Healthcare Initiative, at an interactive forum with the team Saturday.

The Super Eagles are in Transcorp Hotel camp, Calabar to prosecute the Brazil 2014 World Cup qualifier against the Flames of Malawi at the U.J. Esuene stadium

Tagged Super Eagles AFCON 2013 victory against Malaria project, the programme seeks to use the eagles’ victory to address what they called Africa’s number one health challenge

In an interview with our correspondent at the occasion, Dr Mike Omotosho, Sustainable Healthcare Initiative said the target is to get the team to raise 15 million nets out of about 42 million nets needed for malaria control in Nigeria.

“This programme is a malaria eradication advocacy programme basically to shore up support for prevention, to be able to acquire more nets so that more and more people will be able to sleep in those nets and then less people will subsequently have malaria. We have received tremendous support from the Office of the First Lady; we also have huge support from the office of the Minister for Health ante Ministry of Health. This programme was put together in partnership with key agencies including the Queen of Aso Ambassador and conceptualised by Global Dream Foundation. What we try to do is to enlist the Super Eagles players to recognise the need to support the fight against malaria. This is a campaign that requires that everybody plays a part.  We are very happy that the team pledged their support.

“We want to, through them, raise 15 million nets out of about 42 million nets needed in Nigeria for malaria control. If we can do that it will go a long way and they have given us the support to do that and get people to sleep under those nets. The players and management have assured us that they are going raise 15 million nets for us directly and indirectly.  The strategy is that for each of the 11 goals scored by the team in the last Nations’ Cup in South Africa they will commit 1 million nets. Remember that Emmnuel Emenike won the Golden Boots award so that will be an extra million nets and so on.  We are doing because malaria is a very deadly ailment that kills more people than HIV, Cancer and Tuberculosis combined. It kills one person every 30 seconds but it something that can be prevented, treated 100 per cent. It is not a terminal illness. We are Creating awareness. The Federal Government using the Global Fund and a lot of other donor partners funding have committed more than a hundred million  nets into the system but we need to get people to sleep under them,’’ he said.

In a separate interview, Miss Esther Kanu, Queen of Aso Ambassador 2012, also said that she is working on malaria and polio eradication, adding that a trip to Eagles camp was to also realize her goals.

“I am here in Calabar with the Super Eagles to help plead on behalf of the less privileged that the team should please support us with 15 million nets. They (Eagles) have given us their support. We are trying to achieve this between now and December 2014”, she said.

Mr Benjamin Lardi, a Ghanaian and Project Coordinator of Global Dream Foundation, also said that the group came to Calabar to partner with the Super eagles on malaria eradication programme.

“I am a Ghanaian. We are Swaziland where it all started eight years ago, Johannesburg, we went to Ghana; we are partly operating in Democratic Republic of Congo, we are now in Nigeria. I was touched when I saw a young boy died in Swaziland because of shortest of blood, what they called anaemic, so we decided to orm a group to get people to come out and donate blood in that country.

“When we came to Ghana and Nigeria we discovered that the problem was basically malaria so we decided to cover malaria also. We formed this NGO to do good just as what Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said that we should do a  little bit of good wherever we are because it is through putting together those little bits that we overwhelm our world ,’’ he said.