Uganda to O-town to the T-dot

Last week as I was flying to Uganda, East Africa, I sat beside a mother and her 18-month-old daughter. The woman was returning home to introduce her child who had been born in the UK. As we spoke about our plans for our respective trips, she told me about how excited she was at her family meeting her young baby and she also said she was concerned about her baby getting sick with Malaria. In silence, I glanced over at her little girl who was sitting on the ground and playing with her mother’s headphones. As it should be she was completely lost in the bliss of being a baby but the dangers of her contracting Malaria were very real.

After a quick trip to Uganda, I am now in Ottawa on my way to Toronto for World Malaria Day on Friday April 25th. In the days leading up to this first ever-global event, the Canadian Red Cross was proud to announce that along with the generous support of the Canadian government, the founders of Music World, Kroum and Eva Pindoff were going to match dollar to dollar of up to a million dollars that is donated by Canadians to the Malaria Bites campaign. It was also exciting to meet Firdaus Kharas the genius behind the HIV/AIDS PSAs, the Three Amigos. If you haven’t seen them, you can find all 5 spots on youtube.com.

Along those lines, Firdaus has created these brilliant commercials for Malaria prevention and awareness with the very funny characters of Buzz and Bite, two mosquitoes on the hunt to infect people with Malaria parasites. The 30 PSAs will be available worldwide and they have been translated into 40 languages. Buzz and Bite were produced in part with the support of the CRC and have received support from someone who is truly respected worldwide, the Most Reverend Desmond Tutu.

Firdaus produced these spots out of his own time. He volunteered to bring awareness on something he feels more people need to know about. He is passionate about the message and is active in spreading the message. And it is so inspiring to see so many people joining the Malaria Bites facebook group and to have so many supporters across the country galvanizing as a community to affect change.

I have no idea how to express how good it feels to be a part of something that is bigger than myself. As foreign as Malaria might sound, it is such a big disease, which absolutely requires all of our participation. I hope that you will join me in Toronto on Thursday and Friday as the Red Cross launches events to commemorate World Malaria Day. To borrow a phrase from U.S. Presidential Democratic nominee Barack Obama, ‘Yes We Can’.