Under the arrangement code-named ‘Raising Awareness About the Burden of Malaria in Schools’, a precursor to the World Malaria Day falling on April 4th, a team comprised of health ministry officials, Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Malaria and other stakeholders are making rounds in different schools sensitising both the teachers, learners about the dangers of malaria and its possible prevention measures.
The Ministry of Health together with the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Malaria, UNICEF and other stakeholders have joined hands for the fight against malaria through empowering children to take on the mantle.
The Health Ministry joined by other stakeholders have teamed up and taken the malaria crusade to schools by instituting ambassadors’ sensitization teams in different schools with intentions to use them as the base for extending the campaign to as many schools and communities as possible, with a targeted goal of covering the entire country.
Under the arrangement code-named ‘Raising Awareness About the Burden of Malaria in Schools’, a precursor to the World Malaria Day falling on April 4th, a team comprised of health ministry officials, Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Malaria and other stakeholders are making rounds in different schools sensitising both the teachers, learners about the dangers of malaria and its possible prevention measures.
The sensitization campaign is being spearheaded by the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Malaria, Malaria Free Uganda, UNICEF and the Ministry of Health, and has scaled up involvement of children in fighting the burden because they are the most vulnerable group of the population, with ten children succumbing to malaria daily according to a Ministry of Health report.
The Co-coordinator for Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Malaria, Hajara Nakendo told New Vision that a sensitization Walk Against Malaria where the school-going children will walk to parliament has been organized and it will take place on April 5.
Nakendo said that after getting to parliament, children will get the opportunity to address the legislators and other government officials about the malaria burden giving live experiences based from their different districts.
She made the revelation on Wednesday while handing over the Walk Against Malaria kits to the malaria coordinators of Cornerstone Junior School Legacy Campus located at Kabembe village in Kyampisi sub-county, Mukono district.
She said the awareness malaria walk campaign started last year with the drawing of a partnership between the Uganda Parliamentary Forum on Malaria and UNICEF.
She revealed that they were touched by the fact that malaria remains a major challenge in the country affecting particularly children and pregnant mothers, with sicklers and those in refugee camps being the most vulnerable.
“In past campaigns we have been talking with leaders until we realized that there was a big gap calling for involvement of children to stand up themselves and speak up. This marked the beginning of the three-year campaign geared towards raising awareness of the malaria burden especially among school-going children,” she disclosed.
Because of the absence of a force emphatic enough to handle the issue she said, UNICEF came up with a suggestion for more school involvement through creation of platforms for increasing responsibility to address the child’s responsibility in the journey, nurses’ and matrons’ ability to handle cases that may get out of hand in schools.
Nakendo observed that unless something urgent and committed is done, malaria is slowly but surely wiping out a generation, and cited the daily death of 38 children, which she said is not a small threat.
The headmistress for the Cornerstone Junior School Main Campus, Immaculate Mawanda appreciated the stakeholders’ decision to involve children to advocate for their own cause, prophesying that messages asking government to increase funds without involvement of children will not bear desirable results. “Without attitudinal change, money, however much it might be, can never be enough for anything,” she noted.
And her counterpart the headmistress for the Legacy Campus of Cornerstone Junior School, Jackeline Nakagezi said that involvement of children in spreading the anti-malaria gospel is indeed timely as, she noted, many children have lost a lot of valuable classroom time in bed with malaria, while others have developed lifelong effects like cerebral palsy.
The Country Coordinator for Malaria Free Uganda, Aubrey Agaba noted that standing in third position internationally on the burden of malaria cases, and in fifth position in malaria mortality with 70 percent of victims being infants aged three years and below, Uganda has no option but to devise all means giving hope to end the ugly face, with or without donor funding.
He disclosed that plans are finalised for the children to march to parliament in what has been termed as the Walk Against Malaria, in which they intend to influence MPs to increase resources for the fight against malaria.
Prof. Badru Kateregga Yeekokkola Omukazi Gweyeewasiza-Yankuba Olubale ku Mutwe, Angobye N’awaka
In interviews, the children variously expressed the approach to take in sensitizing communities on how to keep malaria at bay through proper sanitation.
The Inspector of Schools in Mukono Henry Kimbugwe was sad to note that daily attendance in schools is dwindling with malaria being the major cause.
Kimbugwe noted that the decision to arm children with the responsibility to take on the mantle of sensitizing communities and peers on the problem is a welcome idea.
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