Nonprofit helping to battle malaria

By Tan Vinh
Seattle Times staff reporter

A campaign to empower African villagers and to fight malaria began
Saturday with the hoisting of a dozen sewing machines into a 40-foot
container near a house in Shoreline.

Their destination is Gambia, a West African country, where three
volunteers will start a training program for women, teaching them to sew
and sell bed nets that keep malaria-infested mosquitoes from preying on
villagers.

The Seattle-based nonprofit GambiaHELP will provide the $5,000 startup
costs with hopes of making the program self-sustaining, said Shelby
Tarutis, founder of the group that focuses on health and education in
Gambia.

Information



GambiaHELP: www.gambiahelp.org/
The group will hire someone to teach 40 women who live east of the
capital, Banjul, how to make the nets and dip them in insecticide before
selling them to villagers.

The insecticide-treated nets, or ITNs, are one of the leading methods for
controlling malaria, although people in many rural areas can't afford the
market price. GambiaHELP hopes to change that.

"This is our most ambitious project," said Tarutis, who started the
nonprofit in 1998 after volunteering with the Peace Corps 20 years ago.

Area volunteers also placed in the shipping container boxes of textbooks
and furniture to start a library in a Gambian village. They will also send
computers to schools and medical supplies to hospitals and rural clinics.

In February, Tarutis and other volunteers will fly to Gambia to deliver
the supplies and start the sewing project.

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