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“Our main purpose is to educate communities about malaria – its effects, how it is transmitted and how to avoid it.” Mugoya Muzamir is one of over two thousand community members in Mbale who has been trained as part of the Mbale Malaria Control project.

Malaria is the most common cause of illness and death in children in Mbale district and, in 2011, at the start of the Mbale Malaria Control Project, the district had the highest malaria burden in Uganda. Now that Mugoya has been trained in malaria case management, it is his responsibility to communicate how to prevent malaria transmission to the communities throughout Mbale. One of the most effective ways of doing this, he has found, is through performance and drama.

Mugoya, and 24 other village health workers (VHTs) trained as part of the project, now travel from community to community, performing dramas that teach how to avoid getting malaria. When I met Mugoya, he told me this was an effective way of communicating to a wide range of people: “When you do something funny, many people will come.”

The method has been successful in conveying messages to people throughout Mbale. Community members told me their families had learnt the importance of sleeping under a mosquito net and that they now clear any stagnant water near their villages. The dramas also include messages of when to contact a VHT, and how to recognise a case of severe malaria.

“When you move round the communities, you notice there has been a change. We have seen that the number of malaria cases has fallen. Last month there was one case of malaria, whereas three months ago there were 27 cases of malaria in that month, so people are picking up on our messages.”

You can check out photos of the drama performance below:

pThe drama group begins by playing songs all of them about preventing malaria in order to attract a crowdp
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Patrick Lee is Communications Assistant at Malaria Consortium in London.

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