Against Malaria: Empowering people to eradicate malaria

Speedo have marked the start of their campaign to support the 2008 World Swim Against Malaria by organising a swim relay with stars from some top UK TV soaps and 30 school kids. Helen Flannigan (aka Rosie Webster from Coronation St), Dominique Jackson (aka Lauren Valentine from Hollyoaks) and Tony Audenshaw (aka Bob Hope from Emmerdale) together with kids St Johns School in Chorlton successfully swam 2008 metres in a pool in Manchester’s MEN Arena. This pool had been specially constructed to host the 9^th FINA World Swimming Championships 2008 being held in Manchester from 9 - 13 April.

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s UK heads of tax, assurance and advisory services swapped their suits for swimmers as they raced against three of the firm’s PAs across the chilly Serpentine lake in Hyde Park today, with enough time to nip back to the office for a day’s work.

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We have just received a good video in from a recent distribution in Gambia. You can see our page that covers this distribution here - http://www.againstmalaria.com/Distribution.aspx?DistributionID=134 As with all our distributions not only can you see pictures or video, you can also see who contributed to these specific nets as well as the proposal and completion reports from the distribution partners. This is all part of our commitment that 100 per cent of money raised buys nets, they end up over beds and we can prove that it happened.

Some of the world’s elite swimmers are behind the 2008 World Swim Against Malaria. This is a video they have just released, produced with the help of Speedo.

It’s not about swimming fast, or far, but about being part of one million people swimming.  So please join them.

Speedo International is one of our longest-standing corporate supporters and has just announced a fantastic campaign to support the 2008 swim. Speedo has produced a World Swim Against Malaria swimwear line which is being promoted by supermodel Alex Wek and photographer Daniela Federici. Daniela has produced a powerful image of Sudanese-born Alek wearing the swimsuit and Alek herself is also organising a swim and setting up a fundraising page.

In keeping with the spirit of the entire operation of World Swim, 100% of Speedo’s profits from the sale of the swimwear will come to the Against Malaria Foundation and 100% will buy nets.

Speedo has also launched its own Swim Around the World Challenge - which you can support by joining on-line at http://www.worldswimagainstmalaria.com/Speedo

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These are a small sample of the things people are doing to raise nets that have caught our eye recently. There is a huge range of activities from sports, arts, music and special events through to some frankly very odd ones.

• An arts project funding nets for a village
• Nets instead of birthday presents
• A fundrasing team of SockMonkeys
• Swimming across Lake Washington
• People called “Will”
• Skiing all the runs in an Alpine resort in one day
• On the Road with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
• Corporate swimmers in the UK
• Parasitologists swimming in the US
• Individuals swimming in Japan
• Belly flop swimming
• Princeton, Yale, Cornell and Berkeley teams against malaria

The World Swim Against Malaria is our original awareness and fundraising activity, but its success has lead to other organisations and individuals approaching us, looking to incorporate their own fundraising ideas into our infrastructure. This is something we are very happy to accommodate. One such initiative is Madness Against Malaria, which ran a very successful campaign in 2007 and is about to launch the final stages of its 2008 competition. Read the rest of this entry »

Tony Linossi, a sprightly 79 year old from Dandenong, Australia, swam in the 2005 World Swim. This time he has got together with some friends and already they have reached a total of over AUS$8,700 (US$7,500) plus a feature in the local paper.

Todd Lawson and Christina Tottle, two Canadian adventure motorcycle travellers, are about to set off on a trip across Africa to raise money for bed nets. We have created a special logo for their trip - Motos Against Malaria - something we can do for any group or organisation which has a large enough initiative they want to organise using the Against Malaria process.

Check out their fundraising page here. Read the rest of this entry »

We ask our all distribution partners to take video footage of nets being distributed. This is part of our whole transparency ethos and we feel it is an important part of connecting the people providing the solution to the people facing the problem. Here is a gem of a video from a distribution in Kenya.

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