World Swim for Malaria

The equivalent of seven jumbo jets full of children die every day from the highly preventable disease, malaria (3,000 children every day)

The single most effective way of preventing malaria is to have people in affected areas sleep under a mosquito net which can be bought for US$5

So a young Australian, Rob Mather, and a team of supporters and sponsors and swimmers are doing a World Swim for Malaria on Dec 3, 2005 - only one week away - to get a million people swimming to raise money to buy millions of mosquito nets. And 100% of the money is to be used for that.

Astonishingly, as pointed out on the Perceptric blog by Richard McKinnon (yes, the one who also blogs here), while the organisers have set up a very sophisticated website they haven’t so far tapped the blogosphere - no blog, no podcast, no vlog. What were they (not) thinking?

But hey, we are the blogosphere and we respond globally in nanoseconds, right? Well, we can have a go, surely.

Among several provocative observations, Richard mentions that Bill & Melinda Gates’ personal foundation is pouring millions into the fight against malaria, so what if the word went out around the Microsoft world? Where are the Scobleizer and all those Microsoft bloggers when we need them?