Our Malaria Work

A Global Community Gathered by Christ:
From Stranger to Neighbor

Through our malaria work, we join the global movement to diminish deaths due to malaria  in Africa by 2015.

Responding to Christ’s call to us to work for justice, peace, and healing in the world, we join with our neighbors in Africa to help them attain healthy lives and move out of poverty. With proven strategies to prevent and treat malaria, together we can make a real difference in containing this debilitating, deadly disease and in alleviating the profound suffering it causes.

Our malaria work is important because:

• In Africa, one in every five children will die from malaria at the rate of one child every 45 seconds
• About 800,000 people die per year due to malaria; in 2008, there were 247 million cases of malaria
• Malaria is most common among people in poverty, particularly women who are pregnant and children       (WHO April 2010 Fact sheet #94)

We join together in:

• Praying for our neighbors in Africa who suffer from malaria and for people working to prevent and treat the disease.
• Learning more about malaria and efforts to contain the disease. Then, sharing that information with our congregations, communities, and elected officials.
• Advocating by telling our elected officials that we support funding for malaria prevention and treatment programs as well as legislation related to the Millennium Development Goals.
• Giving of our financial resources can help prevent, treat, and contain malaria. By improving health, our neighbors in Africa can move out of poverty and work to end the $12 billion of lost productivity due to malaria each year.

Our giving can help to provide:

• Mosquito nets to protect families while they sleep from malaria-carrying mosquitoes
• Indoor residual spraying of homes with insecticides to eliminate mosquitoes
• Anti-malarial medications, such as for women who are pregnant, children, or people who are elderly
• Water treatment projects to control the environments where mosquitoes breed and flourish
• Education to raise awareness on how to prevent, recognize, and treat malaria

Resources

• Listing of different resources and ideas
• Children's Bulletins
  • Nigerian Children's Bulletin
  • Nigerian Younger Children's Bulletin
  • Tanzanian Children's Bulletin
  • Tanzanian Younger Children's Bulletin
    
• Five Children's Sermons and pictures
• Philemon Study
• Advocacy Brochure
• Africa Map
• Poster (pictured right)
• Temple Talk
• Advent Wreath Reflection Guide
• Malaria Advent Calendar

Activities

• Sleep Under
• Water Station Cards
• Malaria Handshake Directions
• Baskeetoss
• 10x10 Challenge
  
• Malaria Curriculum
• "Together We Can Be the Change" lyrics (song by Agapé)

Links

• ELCA Malaria Campaign
• ELCA Malaria Campaign Pilot Synods
  
• Voices for a Malaria-Free Future allows anyone to use their photos, as long as they are credited. www.malariafreefuture.org
• Hunger Rambling blog, "Not just nets..."
• Friends of the ELCA Malaria Campaign Facebook page
• Work in our Companion Synod

Fundraising

• Mother's Day Card
• General Card
• Sell T-shirts, reusable totes and pens
• What Could Your Gift Do? poster
• Gift explanation insert

Tools

• Readiness Checklist
• Participant Release Form
• Participant Release Form (Spanish)

Preferred Funding Route

Make checks out to your congregation. On the memo line, you may designate* either:

The ELCA Malaria Campaign: Current plans for the ELCA Malaria Campaign provide for ELCA engagement with companion churches in Angola, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tanzania**, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. (See www.elca.org/malaria)
**Cooperative work with Lutheran World Relief and other ecumenically based malaria programs.

Lutheran Malaria Initiative (LMI): This collaboration between Lutheran World Relief and The Lutheran     Church—Missouri Synod is made possible through support from the United Nations Foundation. Portions of donations to LMI go to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. To purchase only nets, further designate “Lutheran Nothing But Nets.” (See www.lwr.org/malaria/)

*Undesignated funds will be given to the ELCA Malaria Campaign; in this case, please put only “malaria” on the memo line.

Congregations should collect donations and, after time-limited drives, make one check to:
Minneapolis Area Synod of the ELCA
122 West Franklin Ave., Suite 600
Minneapolis, MN 55404-2474

For information, additional resources, or presentations, please contact Mary Simonson Clark at marysimonsonclark@gmail.com or 612-636-5104 or 952-933-8836.