Things were really BUZZING in Georgia around the Marietta Square on Sunday, April 25 as over 500 people joined Marietta First Baptist Church, Grammy award winning band Third Day, ONE, Sustenance Group, Malaria No More, and Nothing But Nets at the first annual World Malaria Day event to raise awareness and money. 

More than 60 volunteers began streaming in to set up for the day.  Paul Howell, internationally recognized mosquito expert for the Malaria Research and Reference Reagent Resource Center (MR4) at the Centers for Disease Control, put together a fascinating look at mosquitoes and the use of bed nets in the developing world.  Nets were hung over air mattresses as a “village at night” was created for people to experience, and the new Bobby Bailey film, “When the Night Comes,” looped in the background.  Paul Howell brought in more than 500 contained mosquitoes to demonstrate how many infectious bites a child can receive in one year, and also to show people how the mosquitoes react to the chemicals when they come in contact with treated nets.

The children’s area featured a rock climbing wall, hula hoops and the opportunity to learn more about malaria and its devastating effects through fun games. Former Atlanta Hawks and Georgia Tech basketball standout, Ivano “Newby” Newbill, led a basketball contest and a free throw contest, while ONE members Audrey Ruark and Akiliu Giorges were on hand to sign up new ONE members.  Audrey and Akiliu also had the opportunity to share with people the amazing work being done by Malaria No More and Nothing But Nets! 

At last count, we successfully raised almost $9,000 including a matching gift from the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. That’s at least 900 nets – nets that will save lives!  AND donations are still coming in!

This World Malaria Day, I want to share the story that inspired me to dedicate my life and work to ending malaria deaths in Africa:

When I was serving in the Peace Corps in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1980s, I learned first-hand about the danger of malaria. One day, I woke up feverish and dizzy and was diagnosed with severe malaria. While I was lucky enough to have access to treatment, the illness had progressed so quickly that I was unable to understand the simple directions telling me how to take the medicine.

I was far from home and all alone, living in a hut in a remote village. But as soon as my illness became known, dozens of people from the local community gathered to keep an eye on me, willing to help in any way possible—including administering the life-saving medicine—to keep me out of malaria’s grip.

I’m here today thanks to the generosity, compassion and care of a small village in the DRC. For me, the greatest reward of being part of Malaria No More is working every day to honor this incredible act of kindness.

I was lucky—but thousands of African children still die of this preventable and treatable disease every day. With a gift to Malaria No More, you will support our work to end malaria deaths in Africa by 2015 and help more families live free from the fear of malaria.

Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Malaria No More in honor of World Malaria Day, April 25. Together, we can create the world’s greatest success story: the end of malaria deaths in Africa.

Click here to donate now.

Emily Bergantino, Communications Manager at Malaria No More, takes us through the ‘Twitter Nets’ story from the beginning, World Malaria Day 2009, to the end, World Malaria Day 2010.

Campaign details and photos are available on our website here.

The mosquito nets raised during the Ashton vs. CNN Twitter race are being distributed to save lives NOW. A simple tweet that turned into the “Most Re-Tweeted Message” on World Malaria Day (WMD) 2009 is helping to provide 89,724 life-saving nets in Senegal.

The “Twitter Nets” are rolling out in Saraya to provide 7,000 mosquito nets to villagers in need, and the remaining nets will go to African households in Velingara. The distributions are helping close the malaria protection gap in both villages, granting everyone at risk of malaria in Saraya and Velingara universal access to a net. The distribution of “Twitter Nets” will wind down in March, in time for you to ramp up your tweeting for WMD on April 25, 2010.

On top of distributing nets, MNM is bringing Twitter to Senegal! Villagers attending the distribution have been posing with a Twitter frame to say “thank you” to the “twitosphere” (all of you!) for raising awareness of malaria and providing them with life-saving nets. And of course, none of this could have happened without our partners on the ground, the Peace Corps, Tostan and World Vision.

You can find photos here. To keep the social media momentum going, please post them to your Facebook profiles and tweet them from your Twitter accounts!

We’ve recently been nominated for a ThinkSocial Award for our efforts around the Twitter Challenge with Ashton (@aplusk) leading up to World Malaria Day – remember that?!

Public voting opened yesterday and we’re quickly climbing the ranks to victory – and we need your help to ensure we get there! To show your support, visit our page on ThinkSocial and cast your vote. You can sign in through your email, Twitter handle, Facebook and MySpace accounts.

Share the buzz!

World Malaria Day 2009 was a huge success! Here’s what happened:

Thanks to Ashton Kutcher and Twitter, Malaria No More raised awareness and rallied millions of people to support the fight against malaria. This  great video shows the story arc of the Twitter phenomenon and how people around the world are helping end malaria deaths.

MNM participated in the BritWeek Gala in Los Angeles, with former Prime Minister Tony Blair as the guest speaker.

FC Barcelona raised awareness for World Malaria Day at their match against Seville FC (which they won!)

Malaria No More and partners honored Congressional Malaria Champions on Capitol Hill, along with the UK’s Sarah Brown and film star Forest Whitaker.

The One World Against Malaria summit in Washington, DC brought together faith leaders from Africa and the U.S. and helped MNM launch a number of new faith-based initiatives.

MNM’s global affiliates made a big splash in the UK, Canada and the Netherlands!

In addition, Malaria No More was featured in several news stories and the malaria community made a number of new announcements to help focus the world’s attention on how we are fighting-and winning-the battle against malaria.

Malaria No More’s goal is to provide malaria control tools for everyone at risk in Africa by the end of 2010. That’s 611 days away…let’s get to work!

On April 25th the Twitter community came together to get the word out about World Malaria Day. We are honored and inspired by you all. Here is a special note of thanks from all of us.

The support for World Malaria Day on Twitter is outstanding! Thanks to everyone for keeping the spotlight on malaria and showing how every individual can help save a life.

Be sure to check out a video on the Twitter Blog that shows the whole story arc of this phenomenal adventure, starting when @aplusk challenged CNN to a race to a million followers—and malaria emerged as the victor!

So far, Ashton Kutcher, CNN and others have pledged over 65,000 nets to the fight against malaria. And individual Tweeters have donated almost 6,000 mosquito nets through malarianomore.org.

Keep up the great work, keep tweeting and follow @malarianomore to keep up with the latest news!

The White House has just released the following statement from President Obama on the occasion of World Malaria Day:

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT ON WORLD MALARIA DAY

The United States stands with our global partners and people around the world to reaffirm our commitment to make the U.S. a leader in ending deaths from malaria by 2015.

This begins with ending malaria as a major public health threat in Africa, where it kills nearly one million people each year, and overwhelms public health systems. It is time to redouble our efforts to rid the world of a disease that does not have to take lives.

Together, we have made great strides in addressing this preventable and treatable disease. Across Africa, children and their families are sleeping under bed nets; local groups are working with pregnant women and mothers so that anti-malarial drugs are available for them and for their sick children. In schools and villages, community centers and places of worship, clinics and hospitals, optimism is growing that we can and we will succeed in our ambitious goals.

Together, we can build on this progress against malaria and address a broad range of global health threats by investing in health systems, and continuing our work with partners to deliver highly effective prevention and treatment measures.

In Africa, where the disease burden is the greatest, many countries are making dramatic gains in reducing the terrible burden of malaria, particularly for the benefit of those most vulnerable, so that malaria is no longer an intractable fact of life. Today, I recommit to work with our partners in this fight.

Find out how the Malaria Policy Center is working with the White House to help achieve this goal.

Elliott on the big screen at Nationals Stadium

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is!

The Exxon Mobil Corporation announced today that it is giving a $1 million grant to support the President’s Malaria Initiative in honor of World Malaria Day. The grant will support vital training for health-care workers in malaria prevention and treatment, with a focus on those most vulnerable to malaria—pregnant women and young children.

ExxonMobil is a vital partner in the fight against malaria. ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Rex W. Tillerson is co-chair of the Malaria Capital Campaign, an initiative from Malaria No More and the Global Business Coalition to raise resources and leverage best business practices from the private sector. ExxonMobil shows how core competencies and expertise are used to tackle a deadly disease for maximum impact: saving lives.

ExxonMobil has created a special website for World Malaria Day, including video and podcasts of global experts talking about the role business can play in combating the disease. In addition, they are placing malaria awareness ads on television and radio to really help get the message out!

To top it off, Exxon helped American Idol alum Elliott Yamin raise awareness at the DC Nationals game on Tuesday night, highlighting his trip to Angola to raise funds for Malaria No More and get the crowd excited for World Malaria Day!

ExxonMobil’s Africa Health Initiative has committed a total of $55 million so far to programs to fight malaria.