Dr. Jessie Stone, Team JK paddler, and friend tells her story about helping Uganda prevent Malaria by Will Richardson | Mar 1, 2005 | Whitewater | 0 comments Dr. Jessie Stone, Team JK paddler, and friend tells her story about helping Uganda prevent Malaria March 1, 2005 After 10 months of planning and fundraising stateside, Anna Levesque and I returned to Uganda to continue the Malaria education and prevention project that we began in January 2004 with the help of Ugandan based non-profit, Soft Power Education and Kyabirwa village local Jessica Mugerwa. Joining us this time were Alex Nicks and Lissa Potter, a social worker from New York City and aspiring paddler. On this trip, we were adding on the project of helping to build a rural clinic in the Kyabirwa village. We also had access to cheap mosquito nets. As most paddlers know by now, Uganda is home not only to some of the world’s best whitewater on the mighty Nile river but also to one of the world’s worst Malaria problems! EJ is actually responsible for getting me started in this project. If he had not gotten Malaria when we were paddling there for the first time in January of 2003, I never would have known about the seriousness of this problem! Malaria is the biggest infectious disease killer worldwide. 500 million people get Malaria annually and 3 million children die from Malaria each year mostly in Africa. Malaria is the biggest killer of Ugandan children and is responsible for the majority of miscarriages and maternal health problems. Most Ugandans do not have access to health education and therefore know very little about the disease, including how to protect themselves! Sleeping under a mosquito net can reduce the incidence of Malaria by 50%. Because the cost of everything is so cheap in Uganda, it is possible to acquire mosquito nets very inexpensively. For example, one mosquito net costs 5 US dollars and can last for up to 6 years. Building a clinic here is also a reasonable undertaking, even on a paddler’s salary. All of these facts along with the incredible proximity of the mighty Nile made the decision to continue and grow our project an easy one. My medical education has not gone to waste after all! We picked up where we left off. Staying at the lively Nile River Explorer’s camp just a five-minute walk from the village and a two-minute walk to the river made our commute ideal. No driving and very short shuttles. When we finished working in the village, we had easy access to great whitewater. In the time between our last visit to Uganda and now, I set up a US based non-profit called Soft Power Health. We are working in conjunction with Soft Power Education, and they have been instrumental in helping us build the clinic. When we arrived the foundation for the clinic was just being put down. During the next couple of weeks we split our time between laying bricks at the clinic and going back into the field with Jessica to interview families about Malaria and do follow up on mosquito net distribution. It’s been an incredible learning experience. Who knew you could lay bricks, hang up mosquito nets in huts and surf some of the best waves in the world all in one day?? World Class Kayak Academy also visited our building site and pitched in with building and hut visits. It is exciting to see so much interest in our project throughout the kayaking community and beyond. We continued our community Malaria education sessions and sold cheap mosquito nets to over 350 people in the village. The clinic is just about done with the finishing touches such as the solar power system and water catchment soon to come. For me, the most gratifying part has been to do the follow up hut visits for people who have bought nets. So far it appears that people are hanging up their nets and sleeping under them, so our educational sessions are paying off. In the future, we plan to continue the malaria education and prevention programs with the help of our local Malaria educator, Jessica Mugerwa and expand to surrounding villages. We hope to train more local Malaria educators and get as many nets out to people as we can. A local Uganda doctor and nurse will be employed at the clinic, and we hope to continue our volunteer program for medical and non-medical people who are interested in donating their time! And that means ANYBODY who is interested, I would really like to hear from! We are planning for an April 2005 opening of the Soft Power Health clinic. Anna wants to donate a portion of the sales from her upcoming video Girls at Play 2 to our project. Lissa is hard at work fund raising in New York. Alex is editing a short film about our project and there is a rumor on the street that the Jackson Family maybe back to help out in 2006! Funny how one episode of Malaria could turn into a life changing adventure! Jesse Stone Submit a Comment Cancel replyYour email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Email * Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ