NetsforLife

 


After our Eucharist Sunday at St. Christopher's, the Rev. Janice Tidwell, a deacon at Christ Church in Macon, spoke to us about the NetsForLife program to help eradicate malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.  This program, which is strongly supported by Episcopal Relief & Development and our Diocese of Atlanta, provides specially treated mosquito nets to 17 countries.  The nets both directly keep mosquitos from biting and infecting people, often younng children, and the treatment in the nets kills the anopheles mosquito--the only known mosquito to transmit malaria--thus helping to break the infection cycle.  Research has shown that when three-quarters of the people in a community use the nets properly, malaria transmission is cut by 50%, child deaths are cut by 20%, and the mosquito population drops by as much as 90%!  Since 2008, NetsforLife has delivered over $5.6 million nets and this helped reduce worldwide malaria deaths by about 200,000 last year (according to World Heath Organization statistics).

It only costs $12 to buy a a net.  Help support the Episcopal Church's NetsforLife Inspiration Fund, where a group of donors has promise to match every gift made through May 25, 2012, up to a total of $430,000!  (Of course, you don't have to be an Episcopalian to do this.)