Voices of the Youth

  Mr Clement Mudala Bwalya - Zambia

Clement Mudala Bwalya, male youth delegate representing Zambia at the UN Global Youth Leadership Summit, discusses the malaria situation in his country

I am from Lusaka, Zambia where I run a youth centered NGO called Youth Activists Organization (YAO). Our goal is to make adolescent reproductive health information accessible to Zambian youth by empowering them with life skills through various interventions that are youth friendly. YAO uses sport as a medium to attract youth for awareness raising on sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, as well as other public health issues like malaria, cholera and TB. The Youth Football Camp, YAO's biggest initiative, aims to increase men and boys' (aged 14-24) participation in sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention, family planning and child health issues in the family. YAO seeks to mobilize leadership at the community level, nationally and globally to heed the voices and respond to the needs of Zambia's youth. We work with many partners including US Peace Corps Volunteers, the Society for Family Health and PSI. We bring our advocacy messages and educational materials to the community level via our mobile units that are capable of reaching up to 10,000 people in the surrounding area. When we are able to get our hands on ITNs (insecticide treated nets) we distribute them from the mobile units.

Malaria incidence is very high in the areas where we work. What we are increasingly seeing is that HIV compounds the problem of malaria infection. Malaria is much more problematic for immune-compromised individuals. YAO is looking at malaria prevention strategies in this context in order to prolong life.

The understanding of malaria transmission, prevention and treatment is currently too limited. People need more information on how to protect themselves. Children are the most affected and their parents need to be able to recognize the symptoms of malaria so that they can seek proper treatment quickly. This is one of our number one killers, yet IEC for malaria is drastically lower than for HIV. There are some groups doing advocacy and messaging in Zambia, but in the communities where I work I haven't seen much or any of this activity.

With limited resources YAO is working on malaria IEC. We have 'young couples sessions' with newlyweds where we address family issue that they may confront and how to deal with these issues. During these sessions we talk about how dangerous malaria is for pregnant women and children under five. We discuss the importance of a young mother visiting an ANC (antenatal clinic), where more information on safe pregnancy is available.

It is important to highlight malaria as a global issue on the world stage. This is a severe problem for the developing world but globally I don't know if people know this. Certainly there is much more global awareness of HIV's impacts (on growth, stability, health, economies, household resources). At the UN Global Youth Leadership Summit, I look forward to discussing this issue, among many others, with the other participants.