In October 2009, World Vision’s health policy advisor, Craig Jaggers, was in Zambia for the first phase of a bed net distribution that provided nearly 150,000 nets to children and families. A second distribution will take place this month. Below are excerpts from Craig’s travel journal.

February 2010

Craig Jaggers, World Vision health policy advisor



With approximately 24 hours of travel behind me, I arrived in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia and the location of our first shipment of bed nets. Since Zambia is nearing the end of the dry season, it couldn’t be a better time to launch the distribution. The rainy season brings with it an explosion in the mosquito population, carrier of the deadly parasite that wreaks so much damage on children — malaria.

Bed nets are essential

Ensuring that new nets are properly installed in households before the rains begin is essential in the fight against malaria. Why are bed nets so important? Simply put, they are effective. In sub-Saharan Africa, the use of insecticide-treated bed nets could potentially prevent 1 million child deaths. Studies show that when villagers sleep under a treated net, malaria incidence may be reduced by up to 50-60 percent. Also, they are inexpensive. They cost less than $10 and can last 3-5 years.

On the three-hour journey to Monze, where Operation Safety Net would be launched, we drove through the contrasting Zambian countryside, as the late afternoon sun began to cast an orange glow on the land. Once settled into my modest room for the night, a few mosquitoes buzzed around the bathroom. I was reminded just how fortunate I was and how vulnerable many people were outside the walls of my room. I had a net to sleep under, and was taking medication to prevent malaria from occurring in the first place.

Celebrating protection from malaria

The next morning, as our team met to unload and distribute the bed nets, a crowd of approximately 75 people gathered as a music and drama team sang to the deep-thumping sound of traditional drums. We watched them shake their hips, heads, and shoulders to a song about the importance of protecting oneself from malaria.

After the ribbons were cut on the shipping container and the doors swung open, loud cheers accompanied the start of the back-breaking work of unloading the nets and then loading them on to trucks and bicycles. Yes, bicycles! World Vision caregivers often distribute the bed nets to remote villages via bicycles.

For many of these families, a daily decision was buying food for the children, or buying a bed net to protect them from the deadly mosquitoes. One such woman is Beatrice, whom I met the following afternoon.

Beatrice’s story

Beatrice lost her husband to AIDS, and now lives with the 10 children she is left alone to raise. She is acutely aware of not only the daily threat posed by malaria, but the devastating pain it brings when it takes a child’s life. Beatrice is a woman, a mother, a farmer, whose life has been forever changed by a simple mosquito bite. She knows the grief of watching her child get sick, become comatose and eventually succumb to death from malaria. A parasite she never saw took the life of her child because of a net she didn’t have.

There in the fading sun, Beatrice revealed the raw emotion and pain that no mother should ever have to experience. Even today, the threat of malaria loomed large for her remaining 10 children. She had just one net she had received several years ago, and even it had holes that seemed beyond repair. Not large enough to hold all her children, she takes turns each night cramming four of them under a net that should safely cover only two people.

While we may be conflicted with daily financial decisions that range from choosing a tall or grande coffee to a MacBook or PC, Beatrice spoke of the brutal decision of choosing between buying enough food to feed her children or purchasing a bed net on the open market to protect them from malaria. Food has been her choice.

This encounter with Beatrice brought a familiar question to mind. Should I be concerned about how I am spending my time and money in the face of such extreme poverty and great need? I knew the answer lay in another question: “Does God care about Beatrice?”

The answer — a resounding “yes” — compels me to respond and hope that others are inspired to do their part to protect children and families from this pain that Beatrice knows too well.