Faith in the Fight

Charlotte Dando and Usman Nawaz are Faiths Act Fellows at Malaria No More UK.  They work uniting faith communities in the UK behind the common goal of tackling extreme poverty and the suffering and deaths caused by malaria.  They hope to engage Christians, Muslims and people of all faiths to join the global Faiths Act movement and demonstrate that faith can be a force for good.

 

A child dies from malaria every minute.  We think you’ll agree that’s a pretty shocking statistic.  Over 90% of all malaria deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa, a part of the world that can seem distant and different from our own small area of the planet which is perhaps why in our role as Faiths Act Fellows we often get asked, “Why should the problem of malaria matter to people here in the UK?”.  In short, our faith traditions teach us about the importance of caring for human dignity, of relieving human suffering and working for peace in the world.  Jesus spoke of loving your neighbour and similarly the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) taught to “love for your brother what you love for yourself”.  As people of faith, we believe that our neighbours, our brothers (and sisters) are not simply those in our immediate eye-line but as the Dalai Lama puts it, we believe that we belong to “one great human family”.

 

Many faith communities are already engaged in tackling global poverty and the World Health Organisation estimates that 40% of all health services in sub-Saharan Africa are provided by faith based organisations.  It is often the local mosque or church that is best placed and most influential when it comes to tackling real developmental issues on the ground.  And indeed, many faith communities in the UK are actively engaged in issues of poverty; but perhaps the issue of malaria is less well supported or well unknown.  Malaria is preventable and treatable, meaning that every life lost is needless.  The good news is that real impact has been made in reducing the reach of malaria in the past few years and deaths from the disease have fallen by 26% in the last decade.  Yet malaria still costs the African continent’s economy a massive £8 billion each year and accounts for 655,000 deaths worldwide annually.

 

We need your support in the fight to make malaria no more.  Faith communities have massive potential to do good in the world, but imagine how much more people of faith could achieve if they worked together.  How much more powerful would it be for a Christian to stand shoulder to shoulder with a Muslim, next to a Hindu, next to a Buddhist and side by side with other faiths to say together that it is time to end the suffering and deaths caused by malaria.  We hope that you will join a community, inspired by their faith to work together and to make a positive difference in the world.

 

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Charlotte Dando, Usman Nawaz