Stomping out malaria

Once again, Guinea's Peace Corps Volunteers went all out during the months of April-May in the struggle to stomp out malaria in Africa. Many of us do activities all throughout the year to educate and better inform our communities about the dangers of malaria, but during April and May, we engageg in a fierce competition among regions to see who could educate more people, hang more nets and train more peer-educators.

Malaria is a serious problem in Guinea, as well as many other African countries. It is both easily preventable and treatable if identified quickly. Unfortunately many people have misconceptions about the disease and its transmission. That's where we come in!

We kicked off "Malaria Month" in the Basse-Cote with a soccer game: America V. Guinea in which PCVs from the region got together in Fria to educate the general public about malaria transmission and to promote mosquito net use.

Stomping out malaria: I promise to sleep under my mosquito net

Team America 

Back at my school, I trained over 100 11th and 12th grade students to be community educators. We went out in small groups to visit hundreds of households in my village, armed with hammers, nails and string to hang up mosquito nets. 

There was a country-wide mosquito net distribution done by various NGOs earlier this year and nearly every family received mosquito nets...which they didn't hang up. Our job was to talk to each family about malaria and then convince them to let us hang their mosquito net.

Sometimes we had to get creative. 

Together with my students we hung over 530 mosquito nets!

In our attempts to sweep the victory for Basse-Cote malaria activities, I did a ten-minute radio spot with two other PCVs to talk about malaria prevention. Our radio show was played over and over on the local radio throughout the month. 

Props to all my fellow volunteers who worked so hard during this month to stomp out malaria in Guinea!