Iam happy to be here! David Bale has made it possible for me to begin this discussion for CHAU. Iam Lauben Tushemereirwe a teacher by profession and a social worker by practice and experience! I work for Child Aid Uganda (CHAU) a registered Community Based Non- governmental Organisation - not for profit established to protect, bring care, love and compassion to enable AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children enjoy their rights, live their full potential and achieve a purposeful future. Child Aid Uganda targets children whose shoulders carry the burden of adulthood having lost their parents to the monster AIDS. These children have learnt to cry before knowing laughter and to work without knowing rest and will most probably continue to do so unless people like you intervene. These are children whose little hands work late into the night without holding a ball to play or a pencil to write. They work in inhuman conditions because if they don’t they will die of hunger or cold at the same time knowing in their hearts that if they continue to work like this they will die any way. Right now we must find new friends and contributors like you to help us continue this noble cause. Even a gift of $300 will help make a difference. The money will be put towards improving the livelihoods of AIDS orphans and other vulnerable children. It will teach children not only to write their names but also to read yours in the newspapers and share your victories as if they were their own. We also promise that every dollar given to us will go towards putting a “smile” on a child’s face and stars in their eyes and a hope and prayer in their voice to carry you through “centuries of success. As we start now, Iam happy to announce the Give a Net Save Lives Initiative. In this initiative Child Aid Uganda will give special attention to children under five years and pregnant mothers living with HIV and AIDS. The nets will save their lives from mosquito bites protecting them from malaria attacks thus prolonging their life span while on positive living. This pilot initiative will be scaled up to reach out to more people infected and affected by AIDS in future. The major objective of the initiative is to save lives of AIDS orphans and pregnant mothers living with HIV and AIDS through provision of long lasting treated mosquito nets to protect them from malaria. Fact sheet: Did you know that in Africa, malaria – an entirely preventable disease - is a leading cause of death for children, causing at least 18% of under five deaths. In Asia and Latin America, the incidence may be lower, but it attacks the poorest, most marginalized populations. • Malaria can cause an immense burden on health systems estimated to account for 25-35% of all outpatient visits, 20-45% of hospital admissions and 15-35% of hospital deaths. • Economic costs due to malaria in Africa are estimated to be about US$12 billion per year, and malaria is responsible for slowing economic growth in some African countries by 1.3% per year. • Each year, there are an estimated 350-500 million cases of malaria, resulting in 1-3 million deaths; the vast majority among children under five and 90% in sub-Saharan Africa. • Over 3 billion people are at risk of contracting malaria. • Pregnant women are more susceptible to malaria infection than non-pregnant women.

Top priorities to tackle the problem of malaria are: 1. Access Despite the existence of tools and strategies, which work well to control malaria, many people are not being reached. This is a key challenge to control of malaria, requiring delivery systems that reach all at risk. 2. Capacity Current global funding is better than ever, and it is essential to have the capacity to use it well. 3. Ensuring we use approaches and products which work Malaria is not static. We need to keep ahead with new tools to replace those no longer working and evidence on which systems are ensuring access to those at risk of malaria. 4. Sufficient and sustained financing Current commitments to finance malaria control do not yet meet the global needs, but have improved immensely. The challenge is to keep up the momentum in order to achieve lasting improvements. http://www.malariaconsortium.org /pages/about_malaria.html Given the above background, I humbly call upon all the ned members to vote for Child Aid Uganda so we can win the award of 1,000,000 UGX to enable us save the lives of the children under five years and pregnant mothers living with HIV and AIDS through the Give a Net Save Lives Initiative. Thank you in advance for making a positive contribution in the lives of this target group. Child Aid Uganda (CHAU) Small Grants Application: http://www.ned.com/group/lia-glo bal/ws/child_aid_uganda_small_gr ants_application

Hello Lauben,

I've looked at your grant proposal here: http://www.ned.com/group/lia-glo bal/ws/Child%20Aid%20Uganda%20Sm all%20Grants%20Application/ and wonder about where you plan to source the nets. I am pretty certain you can get them much cheaper than you've indicated. Have you already contacted the Malaria Consortium?

Thanks Christina,

According to a market survey conducted by our staff, the price indicated was quoted for the Long Lasting Insectcide Treated Net (LLIN). These nets are of high quality, very effective and different from other types which may be cheaper than the price indicated. We have not yet contacted the Malaria Consortium on this specific project.

Hello Christina,

Sorry i forgot to let you know that the costs indicated in our proposal are in Uganda Shillings. Thank you.

Hi, Lauben

You seem to be doing some wonderful things over there in Uganda. I'm very interested in the issue of malaria prevention and treatment. There is a lot of information over here suggesting that nets are available free of charge for Africa, which may or not be true or overly simplified.

The issue is more that the mechanism to move nets from where they are supplied to where they are needed is inconsistent and unreliable.

Some work in Malawi suggested too that there was some good practice developed with regard to developing the distribution of mosquito nets as a microbusiness for impoverished women and men in rural areas.

Have you given any thought into exploring the possibility of becoming a distribution mechanism for nets?

Secondly, while nets are clearly really important, this product, from the description of your project, is not part of your core operation. How have you selected this purchase as a priority? Are there other ways that the money could be spent which were closer to your core purpose, which, according to your application, is to do with the education, nurture and support of children in your care.

Lastly, how does your organisation sustain itself? Could this money be used to support or develop your core funding?

Hello Ben. Thank you for your message and your concerns. Its good to learn that you are interested in the issue of malaria prevention and treatment.

We have not explored the possibility of becoming a distribution mechanism for nets but this is something we would be interested in. Infact we have a good track record of distributing and following up Long Lasting Mosquito nets in Lyantonde District to children under five years and pregnant mothers. This can be witnessed by the District Health Officer and other people in the district including the sponsors for the nets (Uganda Health Marketing Group, Afford Health Marketing Initiative with support from the US President's Malaria Initiative (PMI)). If you have any ways of linking us to the status of becoming a distribution mechanism we are grateful for that and have experience in handling a similar activity. We would then reserve the funds for health outreach education as well as vehicle hire during distribution.

As stated in our application, the distribution of mosquito nets falls under our core programme area of child health and survival. We have previously distributed nets as already mentioned above. Every day more children under 5 years are born while women also conceive every day increasing on the number of the target group in dire need of nets to protect them from Malaria.

Children under five years and pregnant women living with HIV and AIDS have never been specifically targeted for net distribution in our region. The few numbers in our proposal are just a sample of the very many people in the same category in dire need and this justfies why we termed this (Give a Net Save Lives Initiative) as a pilot project which we intend to scale up to other beneficiaries once we secure funding.

As already mentioned, once we acquire the nets in kind, we could use the money to facilitate health education outreach in the beneficiary communities as well as hiring a vehicle for distribution since the organisation does not possess a vehicle to do this work.

It is important to note however, that apart from net distribution we have other core programme areas such as Advocacy on children rights and environmental protection, housing, water and sanitation improvement, Education support, Poverty reduction at the Household level, Organization development and Capacity building, Research and information that could be supported in future once we raise the required funding.

Child Aid Uganda currently sustains itself through membership contributions, conditional grants acquired through proposal writing following call for proposals, contributions from visitors and other individuals. The organisation doesnot have a very stable resource base for strategic & sustainable interventions. The Malawi experience is a good practice that could be replicated for sustainability.

Lastly but not least, it is true we could explore posibilities of raising money to develope our resource base and core funding so we can have sustainable interventions for our impoverished communities that are worst hit by HIV and AIDS epidemic and its effects such as increasing number of orphans and vulnerable children most of whom are living alone in child headed households.

Thank you for taking time to read my response and look forward to hearing from you.

Hello All,

Iam happy to inform you that we received Ben Parkinson live here in Lyantonde and together have been working on ground work for the Butterfly Project. In addition, we have also explored possibilities of fundraising for Child Aid Uganda projects as the need in our community outways our resource base. Ben is a man of action and iam happy to work with him.