World Malaria Day

Yesterday was World Malaria Day. To commemorate the day, I planned out an activity with the kids from Lemusica. The idea was to carry out the 'Dream Banners' activity and stress to the kids that avoiding Malaria will help them reach their dreams/goals... but the activity turned more into a Malaria themed art session, which I was ok with. I spoke to the kids about Malaria, what the symptoms are, and how to protect themselves from it. I also threw in a few facts in there- About 90% of Malaria related deaths occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, of which most happen to be children under 5. While trying not to scare the kids, I stressed to them the importance of recognizing the Malaria symptoms and telling an adult when they are feeling ill. The kids that participated in this activity are identified as OVCs (Orphans and/or Vulnerable Children) and they live in Lemusica's transit center. After our activity concluded with the OVCs, Virginia (the staff member in charge of HIV/AIDS education/outreach for Lemusica) suggested that we present the mini-palestra to the kids from the Pre-School. Surprisingly, they were really engaging and a few even talked about the time that they had Malaria. Although we didn't have time for them to do Malaria themed drawings, we did have a discussion about Malaria and the importance of sleeping under a mosquito net. Here are a few pictures:




Virginia with the kids

Manuel

Nsasha



Alfonso (an Activista at Lemusica), the kids and I


Pre-schoolers :)
 Check out this Huffington Post article about PCVs' effort to Stomp Out Malaria in Africa:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carrie-hesslerradelet/peace-corps-volunteers-ex_1_b_3146460.html

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