By Amadu Kabia, YES Sierra Leone 2010-2011

On the 13th of April, 2014, for Global Youth Service Day, YES Alumni Sierra Leone worked in collaboration with iEARN Sierra Leone staff, the Ministry of Health and ten local schools to help educate people and eradicate malaria in Mapeh village - Lungi (Portloko District) and Mabap Amputee Camp in Makeni (Bombali District). On this day, YES Alumni Sierra Leone, together with iEARN Staff and ten local schools, distributed over 1,000 mosquito nets to the above named locations. People who sleep under mosquito nets cannot be bitten by mosquitoes when sleeping, and by so doing, they protect themselves, family members, and neighbors, promote economic growth and individual growth. 

According to medical surveys, malaria is one of the highest killing diseases in Sierra Leone. Many people die every year, and 90 percent of those who die are unemployed persons and children. Malaria victims are usually left out of work or school for several weeks every year. Malaria can be passed from one person to another by mosquitoes, which has been very difficult to control, as there are mosquitoes everywhere in Sierra Leone. One reason for the large number of mosquitoes is the improper way of handling garbage. Deaths due to malaria are not only a family loss, but also a loss to our society. Money spent on treating people with malaria every year by people who can barely earn their living contributes to more poverty for these families. 

Money spent on treating malaria could be used to improve other sectors. For example, it could help create more employment opportunities for youth, as the youth unemployment rate is very high. It could also provide free education and build more schools, which would lead to economic growth for the country. In this light, we worked closely as a team, and before distributing the mosquito nets, educated the community on how to take care of trash.

The Ministry of Health provided educational materials (fliers) to the YES alumni and ten local schools on mosquito net use, and they in turn provided this information to the remote communities to whom they supplied the nets.

Tents were also given to homes according to the number of beds in each house, and our team will be monitoring these homes to get feedback on how this project helps them. 

To ensure that effective reporting was achieved, all those involved in carrying out this project were invited to the iEARN Sierra Leone Center in Freetown for web and internet service training. This will enable all participants to connect with people worldwide who share an interest in the malaria project in order to gain and share experiences for future use. 

To help YES alumni living in the provinces where internet service is not available, internet modems were provided to enable them to work closely with the local schools representatives to reflect and share their experience in the iEARN Collaboration Centre. 

At the end of the project, one of the students expressed herself by saying, “Moving from the heart beat of Sierra Leone (Freetown) for the first time with these energetic set of people for a good 18 hours easily has helped me a lot to learn what is happening in my little world."