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BY MATT BLEIMAN

In print | November 15, 2007

The Global Health Forum recently wrapped up its week-long “Catch the Bug!” anti-malaria campaign.

Co-founder Mark Dlugash ’08 said he was pleased with the outcome. “Everything about the campaign was positive. A lot of people at the school seemed interested and asked me about it,” Dlugash said. “I saw people staring at the bednets.”

Dlugash said he believes that the events were helpful in terms of spreading awareness of malaria and its effects. One of the goals of the Global Health Forum is to spread awareness of diseases, so Dlugash said that this campaign helped to accomplish that goal.

“Given the effort, excitement and enthusiasm that all of the members put into this campaign, I am not only pleased by the success of our events, but I’m also very much impressed by how much Swarthmore students are able to get done,” board member Mark Mai ’09 said.

Mai had initial concerns that the campaign plans would be too ambitious, but found that the group was able to accomplish them. “Honestly, I think that most of our members had never done anything of this magnitude before, so we were really worried about things we may have missed or overlooked in our planning,” Mai said. “We over-planned; we thought out the details and really put 100 percent into the anti-malaria campaign — and it paid off.”

The reaction from the faculty and students was also very positive. “I have been astounded by how supportive and enthusiastic everyone has been,” Mai said. "We have gotten various e-mails from students, faculty and even alumni, telling us that they thought we had a great campaign,

One staff member even walked down to Sharples where we were tabling just to say that she thought we had the most organized campaign, she had seen at Swarthmore. With comments like that, it’s hard not to feel good about the massive amounts of work everyone did."

Another board member, Erin Ronhovde ’10, also received positive feedback from the events. “I think the most impressive part of our campaign was just the amount of support it got from people on campus,” Ronhovde said. “I did not receive any negative feedback from students. In fact, many were very enthusiastic about what we were doing. I actually had quite a few people ask me while we were tabling how they could get involved.”

During the campaign, the Global Health Forum raised about $3,500 and hopes for a total of $8,000 to $10,000. In addition to the fundraising during the anti-malaria campaign, the Global Health Forum has and will continue to reach out to communities around Swarthmore. Forum members are in the process of sending letters out to different departments and administrators as well as asking students to ask their families to contribute. They believe the efforts will be successful because, “it’s so cheap to help,” said Dlugash. Several departments, as well as the Alumni Council, have already contributed to the funds.

The donations will be used to buy bednets for children in Uganda. The bednets will be purchased through the organization Against Malaria, which buys the proper kind of bednets and distributes them. The Global Health Forum will also be working with Life in Africa, a non-governmental organization, to decide with the help of community leaders who will receive the bednets in the Acholi Quarter in Kamapala, Uganda. The Global Health Forum hopes to be able to buy somewhere between 1,000 and 1,600 bednets for the poverty-stricken area. They will also work to educate the recipients on how to properly use the bednets to ensure efficacy.

Dlugash is excited to send the bednets out because he knows they will help people in Uganda. “Ultimately it’s going to save lives. A lot of kids die of malaria, and nets decrease mortality by around 35 percent,” Dlugash said. “It’s a moral crisis — kids are dying and it’s so easy for us to get involved.”

The Global Health Forum is also looking towards the future. One of their new goals is long-term sustainability of their efforts to improve the state of malaria-afflicted Uganda. The group wants to make sure that people continue to be educated on bednet use and ultimately get them to the whole community in the Acholi Quarter. “Hopefully, we will send students to Uganda or do programs through the Lang Center,” Dlugash said.

Dlugash believes that it is a lot easier to be involved and understand the crisis once you have been to the region. The hope is that they will be able to acquire grants and other fundings to send Swarthmore students there.

The Global Health Forum believes that the positive reception the anti-malaria campaign has received will make the continuity of the program easier.

Originally, the Global Health Forum did not intend to do the anti-malaria campaign every year, but now organizers plan to continue the efforts. They also hope to expand the program to other schools, and may even try to form a non-profit organization so the campaign can continue to grow and expand.

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