By Geoff Smith (Lethbridge News Now)

Malawi-bound students raising money for mosquito nets

Jan 7, 2018 | 5:07 AM

LETHBRIDGE- A group of local post-secondary students hopes not only to help people in one of the world’s least-developed countries, but to bring something back with them.

Fifteen students from a wide range of studies at Lethbridge College and the University of Lethbridge are preparing for a four-week trip in late spring to the African nation of Malawi. They’ll assist with blood testing clinics and raise awareness of HIV and AIDS, malaria, and hypertension.

Malawi has a high prevalence of malaria, spread by mosquitoes, due to its location on the world’s ninth largest lake, explained Paige Hopper, a second-year student in the bachelor of health science and public health program. The group is raising money to buy mosquito nets.

“These mosquito nets are $15 apiece, but they don’t have the money to spend $15 on a mosquito net,” Hopper said. “And it’s not like it only lasts for a day, it lasts for a long period of time. But it’s the difference between them being able to feed their families and them being able to prevent malaria, and their goal at the end of the day is subsistence.”

First-year nursing student Mishaela Lanigan said while there, they’ll talk about prevention, treatment and symptoms.

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“We were told not to anticipate (changing) everyone’s lives, and we’re not going to go over there and change everything that’s going on,” Lanigan said. “But we can at least give them the information they need to be aware, more, of what’s going on around them.”

She added the daily schedule is anticipated to include heading out to a rural community each morning, to provide information to children as well as their teachers and parents.

“From there we’ll have the late afternoons and the evenings to spend and get some cultural background from them as well, participating in a lot of their cultural activities.”

Many of the people live in small, rural communities, Hopper said. Eighty-five per cent of the country’s economy is agricultural in nature.

She explained the clinics will even help diagnose high blood pressure, in an area where people can’t simply go to their neighbourhood drugstore and put their arm in a testing machine.

“It’s such a poor area they don’t really have the opportunity to go get tested, either for HIV or to see if they have any issues with their blood pressure,” Hopper said.

Nursing student Genevieve Tiede said the group has partnered with Value Village as a way to raise money to buy the mosquito nets. People can contribute used clothing and other goods, which will earn the students 15 cents per pound for soft goods, and 5 cents per pound for other merchandise.

The donation boxes are located at the Nicholas Sheran, Fritz Sick, and Stan Siwik pools, as well as the Lethbridge College Student Union and the U of L Student Union. The boxes will be there through Jan. 10.

Lanigan said they won’t have a true idea of what to expect until they actually arrive. But she hopes the trip is mutually beneficial.

“We’re going to come back with, I’m hoping, a whole new understanding of way of living, and that there are more important things in the world than things like our smartphone or our tablets or having the most new and expensive thing,” she said.

“There are other things in the world that are way more important and should be more of a priority than anything.”