Nov. 22, 2006

NBA, Methodists Team Up to Fight Malaria

By Rebecca U. Cho

WASHINGTON (RNS) — The NBA, Sports Illustrated and the United Methodist Church are caught up together in nets.

In an effort to stop the spread of malaria in Africa, where the disease is a leading killer of children, NBA Cares, Sports Illustrated, the United Methodist Church and others announced a new campaign with the United Nations Foundation to provide mosquito nets to families in need.

The "Nothing But Nets" campaign asks individuals to donate $10 to send an insecticide-treated net to Africa where it can be used to cover people while they're sleeping to prevent mosquito bites that lead to malaria.

"It's a wonderful 21st century mix of the secular and sacred, which is really unprecedented," said United Methodist Bishop Thomas Bickerton of Western Pennsylvania.

He said the denomination has historically paired the spread of the gospel with social outreach, and joining the campaign was "a natural partnership."

About 500 million people are infected worldwide with the disease each year, resulting in 1 million deaths. Ninety percent of the dead are in Africa; most are African children, according to the World Health Organization Web site.

Bickerton said the U.N. approached the United Methodist Church last summer to join in its efforts because the church has been sending missionaries to Africa for more than 160 years and has established a strong base in area hospitals and churches.

"(The U.N.) said, `You've got the networks. We've got the resources and ideas. Let's partner up,'" he said.

Bickerton said sponsors such as the NBA and Sports Illustrated can help stimulate young people -- specifically high school and college students -- within the church to join in the campaign efforts.

"The campaign gives us an opportunity to reach a generation that we're struggling to reach, quite frankly," he said. The NBA has agreed to send players to the United Methodists' international Youth 2007 gathering next July, according to Bickerton.

The campaign was created after a Sports Illustrated column, also called "Nothing But Nets," last spring urged people to help fight African malaria by donating mosquito nets.

Each of the insecticide-treated nets can last a family for four years, according to the "Nothing But Nets" Web site. The campaign has raised enough to deliver more than 123,000 nets to Africa.