The 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly overwhelmingly voted to launch the ELCA Malaria Campaign.
We will join hands with our sisters and brothers in Africa to do our part and help contain deaths from malaria by 2015. We want to make malaria history! There is a global movement going on today against malaria. The ELCA Malaria Campaign represents us in that movement, and our campaign helps us accompany our companion churches in Africa as they fight malaria in their countries.
Nearly 800,000 people die each year from malaria. Most live in Africa. Most are women, especially pregnant women, and many are children under 5. Statistics tell us that a child under 5 dies every 45 seconds in Africa from malaria. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The disease is completely preventable and treatable.
Strategies are in place
Working church to church we already have the relationships in place to reach individuals and communities that other organizations cannot reach. Our companions already have health care providers trained to save lives. They have strategies for how best to address the malaria problem in their context. They need our help with financial resources to help bring these plans to life and to help these trained and capable workers to save lives previously lost to malaria.
The ELCA Malaria Campaign’s fundraising goal is $15 million by 2015.
We will direct its available funds to our companion churches in Africa. We will be working with Lutheran Churches in: Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Zambia, Tanzania, the Central African Republic, Liberia, Nigeria, Uganda and Ethiopia.
Companion churches in these countries are gearing up by developing church-specific strategic plans around fighting malaria, and by building their capacity to address this long-standing disease among their membership. Interventions such as insecticide treated bed nets, residual spraying, access to medication, water drainage and sanitation, as well as awareness and education are expected in all sites. Your donations to the ELCA Malaria Campaign will help provide mosquito nets, health care, education and more to help those most in need.
The ELCA Malaria Campaign works closely with ELCA World Hunger. It reaches out to new donors and also provides an exciting opportunity for current donors to deepen their commitment above and beyond normal giving.
What’s next?
We need your help. Please visit the website here to learn more, to donate and to access helpful resources so you can help spread the word. Get your congregation and synod involved. And please give generously to support this important work. Make malaria history by 2015 with the ELCA Malaria Campaign!
