Help From People Of Faith

Last week marked the halfway point for achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals set in 2000 by the international community. One of the goals is the eradication of deaths from malaria, which kills about a million people each year, mostly children under the age of 5. Although we're only beginning our fight against malaria, we've made much progress toward putting together a worldwide effort worthy of this foe. A big weapon in this fight is the people who come together in churches, synagogues, and mosques. Such faith communities have played a vital role in awakening the conscience of the world to global poverty and the fight against malaria. All over the world people of faith have signed petitions, marched and argued for action. As the former British prime minister, I can bear witness to the efficacy of their campaign.

Their call to action was insistent yet reasonably expressed; determined yet pursued with calm conviction. It was heard, and resulted in real commitments educating people about preventive measures. But unless we now step up the level of delivery on those commitments, the eradication of malaria and other Millennium Development Goals will not be met. Going forward, faith communities will be essential to the success of the malaria campaign. What began as a 19th-century mission to spread the Christian faith in sub-Saharan Africa can be reborn as a 21st-century mission to save lives, and show what true faith in action can achieve.

It is a simple matter to prevent malaria with bed nets and medicines. Wherever and whenever they're used they save lives. And people know they need them. When I was recording a short video for the campaign, the cameraman, who had just returned from Africa, told me that the village people were polite and friendly. Then when he brought out the nets for them to be filmed, they fell upon him, desperate to have them, mothers and fathers realizing that this might be their only chance to save the lives of their loved ones.

These are people we never see; their faces and lives are hidden from us. But imagine they are part of our immediate community. Wouldn't we regard it as utterly obscene if for $5 we could save their lives and then didn't?

For many reasons, African governments, with the best will in the world, find it difficult to bring adequate health care to more than 50 to 60 percent of their populations. Faith communities have the best access to the poorest, the least educated, those living off the beaten track in poor rural areas. Because religious leaders are regarded as trusted authority figures, they can pass on health messages to people unreachable by governments.

That's why I am convinced that if more faith communities trained primary health-care workers, they would make a huge contribution, provided they had adequate drugs and knowledge, and were plugged into national health plans.