USAID NetWorks presents football jerseys to GES

USAID NetWorks Ghana project formally presented school jerseys to the Ghana Education Service, as acknowledgement and reward for the efforts of Ghanaian teachers and schoolchildren who have engaged and educated their communities to Drive Malaria Away for GoodLife.

Working alongside the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) and the Ghana Education Service’s (GES) School Health Education Programme (SHEP) to implement the School-Based Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLIN) Continuous Distribution Strategy increasing LLIN use in Primary 2 and Primary 6 children, the USAID Networks Project Ghana, implemented by Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programmes (CCP), has been.

Speaking on the project Mr. J. K. Ofori the Chief of Party- Networks said the School-Based LLIN Continuous Distribution Strategy is one of such strategies in which Primary 2 and Primary 6 children are given free LLIN’s, and educated on Malaria and the role of LLIN’s in its prevention using various teaching methods and learning aids.

The Drama Guide and Community Drama Competition are two of such teaching aids in which teachers across the nation were given guidelines as to how to educate their pupils on Malaria and creatively share this knowledge with their communities.

In presenting the award, the Deputy Mission Director-USAID, Andy Caras said this will mark the beginning of the rewarding exercise, the USAID NetWorks Ghana Project and GES has collaborated with some partners to organize such a programme.

According to him across the country, two schools in each circuit will be awarded a full set of football jerseys as reward for the number of community engagements they have held to prevent Malaria.

The programme included exciting theatre and musical performances from two of the winning schools and a 5-aside football game at the Sege Cluster Schools in Sege, Ada West District.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), Malaria still kills an estimated 660,000 people worldwide, mainly children under five years of age in sub-Saharan Africa.

In 2012 over 30, 000 hospital admissions in Ghana were due to Malaria; while 10 out of every 100,000 deaths were caused by Malaria.

The USAID NetWorks Ghana Project is a two year, USAID-funded global project led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs (JHU?CCP)

The USAID NetWorks Ghana Project is a two year USAID funded project with technical assistance provided by Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (JHUCCP).

The NetWorks Project has a focus of supporting the National Malaria Control Programme (NMCP) to provide Long Lasting Insecticidal Nets (LLINs), while implementing strategies that further increase the use of LLINs across the nation.