Africa continues to bear the greatest burden of malaria, a preventable parasitic disease that kills one million people each year, mostly children, and pregnant mothers suffer from it too.

The female Anopheles mosquito transmits malaria from person to person. The disease infects the human liver and red blood cells, causing high fevers and flu-like symptoms. The malaria disease has raised a global alarm for prevention and control and many organisations have launched wars against it but yet it seems to be winning.

Established on 6th April 2011 by a group of young individuals who are motivated in giving back to their community, and the world at large, the Your Change For a Change (YCFaC) is a registered non-profit organisation that targets making available quality and responsive disease management incentives within communities through participation and contribution of culturally responsible groups/individuals.

The organisation is a resource for under-privileged children and expecting mothers with a strong commitment to delivering respectful, compassionate, quality preventive services, and access to medical assistance for the under-privileged.

YCFaC was formally launched in The Gambia on 7th January this year. Since then, the YCFaC Gambia chapter continues her commitment to the fight in the country. Last Saturday, the organisation organised a fund raising lunch at the Al-Rawsheh Lebanese restaurant at Senegambia, targeting to raise 1000 bed nets for a free distribution to needy children and pregnant mothers in The Gambia.

One of the first major successes of YCFaC in The Gambia occurred in Marakisa, a village in the outskirts of Brikama, where over 500 bed nets were handed over to the community last year.

This helped The Gambia government reach its goal of providing free bed nets for the country’s population who are at risk of infection and to begin preparing baseline activities to reduce the burden of the disease. The theme of the fund raising lunch was, “Have lunch, have fun and safe a life’. “Sleeping under a net can be crucial to preventing the disease,” the organisation’s deputy country director Lamin Daboe said at the ceremony.

ST The Gambian dream, YCFaC’s malaria griot was at hand to entertain the ceremony, which was attended by over fifty people. ST has released a track that sermonises the preventive and control measures for malaria. “The event was nice, informative and full of food and fun. We are calling on all and sundry to support us in the fight against malaria by donating a bed net. We are also committed to fighting pneumonia and birth asphyxia,” Darboe further said.

He went on: “We know malaria is a threat to us all but we are optimistic that we will win the fight”. Cross-border mobile and migrant populations should be some of the key target groups that need to be specifically addressed when it comes to malaria elimination. YCFaC is using experience gained through behavioral change communication initiatives as part of efforts to eliminate malari. The government has found the move a worthy cause and the organisation as a potential partner in the fight against malaria.

The launching of the organisation on January 6th this year was even presided over by the minister of Health and Social Welfare, Fatim Badjie in Marakisa. This effort will help ensure effective malaria control across other regional borders. People, with reference to children and pregnant mothers face particular challenges in accessing prevention and treatment services for malaria, placing them at high risk of malaria and other infectious diseases.