Seek Sponsorship
Mosquito nets are not free. The Malaria Operation needs as many of them as it can get and it just not
have the budget to get the thousands of them that are needed.
Part of the volunteer’s fees will go towards buying a number of nets. The rest need to be sourced from
elsewhere. There are two main sources:
- Upcoming Volunteers
Upcoming Volunteers are obviously keen about the project and want to help as best they can.
They are in a prime position to raise funds through their community groups, family and friends.
- People passionate about the project.
Meaningful Volunteer has lots of “silent supporters”. People who love what Meaningful
Volunteer is doing, but are just not in the position to head overseas and volunteer.
It is important that the Malaria Operation give these people the tools they need to raise funds to
purchase mosquito nets in Uganda.
The Sponsorship Pack is designed to put resources in the hands of potential sponsors to maximize their chances of success. The Sponsorship pack contains the following components:
PowerPoint Presentations
A PowerPoint presentation is available for download. It has the following main sections included.
These sections can be removed if they are not relevant to the speaker.
Ten Facts about Malaria
What will I be doing?
Facts about target Area (Buyaya)
This section details what the volunteer will be doing in Uganda.
The Process Outline.
How people’s money goes from the fundraiser all the way to an in-use mosquito net. The basic process is:
Seek Sponsorship => Training => Organize Community Meeting => Run a Community Meeting => Distribute Nets => Follow up Visits
• All about Meaningful Volunteer
Handouts
The handouts are designed to accompany the PowerPoint presentation. They follow the basic flow of the presentation and contain things such as:
• An overview of the process.
• Information about Meaningful Volunteer and the Malaria Operation project.
• Ten facts about malaria.
• Information about the target area (Buyaya).
Sponsor Forms
When a sponsor is found, they fill out a sponsor form. The sponsor form contains basic demographic information, as well as a check box to indicate whether or not they want to have their name included on the website. For example, if Joan has raised money through ten sponsors, then website users can visit the Meaningful Volunteer site, see the a photo of the family using the net, and have the ten
sponsors listed below the family.
Fundraising Hints Booklet
A PowerPoint presentation is just one way of generating funds. Volunteers are supplied with a booklet with a whole raft of ideas about how they can raise money for nets.
Training
It is vital that the volunteer has a good understanding of malaria before taking community meetings.
This starts with the Malaria 101 document. This contains all the technical information that the
volunteer needs about malaria.
Upon arrival in the country, the volunteer is taken through the manual step-by-step with one of Meaningful Volunteer staff.
The volunteer is also taken through the Process Overview document. This spells out in detail exactly what the volunteer will be doing as part of the Malaria Operation. The basic process is:
Seek Sponsorship => Training => Organize Community Meeting => Run a Community Meeting => Distribute Nets => Follow up Visits
Organise Community Meeting
Getting people to attend to one of the community meetings is a challenge in itself. Buyaya is a rural community and houses are often very far apart. There are – of course – no phones or email access!
Locals are often busy digging (farming), fetching water, fetching firewood, preparing meals and so on.
Many locals do their physical tasks in the early morning so as to avoid the hot sun, so the best time to organize a meeting is around ten o’clock in the morning.
One important component of the Malaria Operation is to limit the community meetings to only twenty or so adults, and then do the same training many times. This makes it much easier to manage the class, as well as solving logistical problems such providing a lunch problem. To help coordinate the process, people in the community are issued Entry Cards. No card = No Entry.
The best place to do the training is the Guest House in Buyaya. This has the advantages of being a free resource, being central to the community, and being a gated compound. Schools provide another great place for training, but have the added complication of needing to be done outside school hours or on the weekend. The principal of the school should be consulted before the school grounds are used.
There is unfortunately no easy way organize a meeting other than walking around the community and telling people about the upcoming meeting. Meaningful Volunteer staff can help coordinate the process and assist with translation.
Demographic information about the household is recorded on the Household Form, including its GPS location, a photo of the house, and the number of nets required.
Run Community Meeting
The community meeting itself is one of the most important steps of the whole process. It is the first real meaningful contact with the community and trains the community in malaria related issues. The following items are used in as part of the community meetings:
How to Run a Community Meeting.
This document covers a step-by-step breakdown of everything that needs to be done on the day, as well as top mistakes that volunteers make, and some handy hints
Lesson Plans.
The Lesson Plan document contains detailed step-by-step descriptions of all the lesson plans.
The following topics are covered in the lesson plans:
• Introduction lesson
• Malaria carrying mosquitoes only come at night
• Mosquitoes like still water
• Don’t touch the net!
• Wrap Up
Lesson Plan Materials.
Many visual aids are used as part of the lesson plans. These include such things as mosquito t-shirts, malaria cards, and water bowls.
Malaria Booklet
At the conclusion of the meeting, all participants are given a Malaria Booklet detailing in pictorial form (to account for illiterate people) the lessons learnt.
Net Distribution
The distribution is a separate process to the community meeting and should be performed on a different day. We want to ensure that the nets are installed properly in the homes. This also helps to mitigate people taking the nets and just selling them. The plastic bag that the net comes in should also be taken away as this also helps to prevent the net being resold, and allows us to dispose of the plastic bag in an environmentally friendly way.
Volunteers are also issued with the Net Treatment Document that contains details on how to safely treat a mosquito net.
A photograph is taken of the net that has been setup for promotional reasons.
Follow up Visits
A study conducted by the CDC in Sierra Leone showed a 22 percent increase in net utilization following a personal visit from a volunteer living in the same community promoting net usage. A study in Togo showed similar improvements.
It is vital that we return to the households after the initial setup. The first revisit should be done within a month initial net distribution, and then just before the rainy season where malaria rates are high.