Sitting – by Amy McNair

This is a guest blog from Amy McNair one of the Faiths Act Fellows who I traveld to Tanzania with.

her blog can be found here

Sometimes fighting malaria seems like trying to change the direction of the wind. I feel like I have sat a lot this week. Rebecca and I have put together a traveling art exhibit featuring diverse original art pieces to commemorate World Malaria Day, and it has been touring around different universities and congregations in the Chicago area. It is a silent auction to raise money for Malaria No More, and a lot of our time has been spent driving to venues, setting up the display, participating in panels and talking to people about the art and malaria, and sitting by the art. This started to get frustrating to me yesterday, because I was thinking about how I wanted to be in the trenches, actually fighting for lives ruined by malaria, and this felt sort of anti-climactic and un-glamorous after all my training. Then we screened a film by Bobby Bailey called “When the Night Comes.” I have seen it multiple times already, but I found myself crying when it came to the scene where a boy named Ivan dies in front of the camera from cerebral malaria, and the doctors look on hopelessly–having tried all they could. My mind was instantly flooded with the faces of people I met in Tanzania. Godlisten-10 months old. Chubby cheeks and bright eyes. Was on his third trip to the hospital with malaria. Don-22 years old. Bragged he could do push-ups anywhere in the world, even though he has never left his village. Laughed when I asked if malaria could be ended. “It is just here. We will always suffer from this.” Happiness. Brilliant 40-something female doctor working on the malaria vaccine trials. Had a family member die from malaria.

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Malaria Wipe Out

This is a video I made please repost it so we can get maximum coverage

My Birthday

Dear Friends, Colleagues, Neighbors and Family.

(c) M. Hallahan/Sumitomo Chemical - Olyset Net

This Saturday (April 17th) I will be turning 25 and as I embark on the quarter century land mark I wanted to request from you to think about the millions of people who won’t ever make it this far.

On April 25th exactly 8 days after my birthday is World Malaria Day. It is the one day we can focus the world’s attention on this disease that is reasonable for 1 million deaths a year.

Malaria is one of the biggest injustices in the world today and no disease has claimed more lives than malaria has, from famous historic figures such as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan to the child who has just passed away in Sub Saharan Africa as you finish this sentence.

Malaria is a disease that kills a child every 30 seconds what makes this statistic so much worse is that malaria is a completely preventable disease. we have a saying that I use when talking about malaria that is ‘dying of malaria is like dying of a broken arm’. Imagine falling of your bike or down the stairs and you break your arm and because of that broken arm you die. The thought of it actually seems kind of silly how can we in this modern day dying from something like a broken arm? That’s what it is like dying from malaria, it doesn’t have to happen and it shouldn’t happen.

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