Education is healing

Malita a young mother, returned with her family to Angola from northern Namibia last year as peace and security seemed so hopeful.  She decided it was time to start cultivating the family farm. They had heard that vegetables were selling well in the market and the future was bright.

Malita had two small children and was pregnant. She knew that “fever” came but she had no idea what caused it.  She was inclined to believe her mother-in-law that it was ‘bad sugar cane.’ When her eldest child – about three years old -- started feeling feverish the week before, she was utterly powerless to save him. She talked with tears in her eyes about how quickly he had died, in her arms, in less than a day.  Malita trekked all day with her mother-in-law and had waited for her net.  Not only did she leave with a net, but she left with knowledge.

She now knows about fever and what to do.  She knows about the malaria mosquito, she knows that she and her child must sleep under the net, not just in the rainy season but every night. She knows about puddles, about keeping her compound clean, and about spraying. She knows about treatment with medicine and she knows where to go for help.

And, perhaps most important of all, she has become a community malaria volunteer.  More nets are on their way to Ondjiva, and Malita will be ready, she has been trained in malaria prevention so that she can educate, support and teach her own village. She will make sure that mothers are protected, that the elderly and sick sleep every night under a net, and that those who need treatment will know where to go.  She will make sure that all the medicine is swallowed.  Malita’s knowledge and experience will stay in her village, Namakunde; it will steadily build the health, wellbeing, agricultural production and economic vitality of this small community, on the border between Angola and Namibia.