ISDELL:FLOWERS MALARIA INITIATIVE
THE ISDELL:FLOWERS CROSS BORDER MALARIA INITIATIVE
The Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative is committed to malaria elimination through community mobilization along the shared borders of Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
We believe that malaria can be eliminated only if those most affected have the knowledge, skills, and resources to prevent and treat the disease and to advocate for its elimination.
The Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative (IFCBMI) is composed of partner organizations working in coordination with National Malaria Control Programs in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, as well as the J.C. Flowers Foundation.
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Where We Work
We are active in isolated, "last mile" communities located along the shared borders of Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative emphasizes a regional, cross-border approach.
This is because national borders in the region are porous and frequently crossed as part of daily life. The elimination of malaria in Southern Africa depends on a collective ability to control malaria along countries’ shared borders.
A country’s success is linked to its neighbors’. By working in under-served border communities, the initiative aims to halt transmission across national borders.
Malaria transmission varies between the countries in which Isdell:Flowers is active. Zambia and Zimbabwe are both high-transmission countries with several million cases of malaria per year, but some regions within each country have very few cases. In Angola, malaria is the principal cause of morbidity and mortality. Namibia, however, has relatively low transmission.
*Partners in Mozambique will soon be joining the Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative
OUR STRATEGIES
Since 2004, Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative partners have worked with networks of local faith organizations and community volunteers, in collaboration with Ministries of Health, using principles that are:
HOW WE WORK
We strengthen networks of community malaria volunteers and community health workers.
Partners of the Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative facilitate community action against malaria by equipping volunteers with the knowledge and skills needed to be anti-malaria advocates. Though specific strategies vary from place to place, all community malaria volunteers and community health workers support malaria case management and encourage community action for the local control—and ultimate elimination—of malaria. Malaria education and case management become sustainable when communities have their own malaria skills and knowledge.
The Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative is comprised of more than 1,500 community malaria volunteers and health workers who encourage families to sleep under bed nets, accept indoor residual spraying, and to seek care and treatment when they are sick with a fever. Many families living in border communities live far away from health posts or hospitals. To address this barrier, trained community health workers conduct malaria tests and administer treatment, and therefore increase access to vital health care.
Watch the video below to see how Community Health Workers like Sangoma Ndibi are accelerating malaria elimination efforts in their own communities.
We support faith leaders who are champions for malaria elimination.
Faith leaders are strategically placed to serve as a bridge between those giving technical guidance on how to eliminate malaria and local leaders who implement this technical guidance. Therefore, faith organizations are uniquely positioned to advocate for malaria elimination at local, regional, and national levels.
At a community level, faith leaders are among the most influential and therefore can play a key role in ensuring that the whole community is engaged in efforts to prevent and eliminate malaria.
Many faith leaders within the Isdell:Flowers program area are members of FLAME (Faith Leader Advocacy for Malaria Elimination) coalitions.
To learn more about the Faith Leader Advocacy for Malaria Elimination (FLAME) initiative, visit our FLAME page.
We engage village headmen and other traditional leaders, schoolchildren and teachers, and existing community groups.
Traditional leaders play a central role in leading their communities towards positive behavior change and ownership of efforts towards community malaria elimination. Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative partners facilitate trainings on malaria for village headmen and other community leaders, and partner with them to develop and implement community malaria action plans.
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Teachers are also equipped with skills to organize students to form malaria clubs, host malaria-themed dramas and debates that are open to the public, and train student malaria ambassadors who can educate their parents, neighbors, and schoolmates in malaria elimination activities, leading by their good example.
Isdell:Flowers work incorporates existing community committees and groups who use their platforms to address barriers to malaria elimination.
We implement community action planning that is data-driven.
Malaria elimination activities are not “one size fits all,” and must be tailored and targeted to local contexts. Two types of data are collected:
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Routine program monitoring and evaluation data, gathered from community malaria volunteer and health facility records.
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Household data collected in a yearly knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) survey.
Community leaders and community malaria volunteers and health workers use these data to develop community malaria action plans, in coordination with the Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative program staff and in alignment with national strategies.
You can view the KAP survey data from all four countries that are part of the Isdell:Flowers Cross Border Malaria Initiative on our resources page.
ISDELL:FLOWERS
IN NUMBERS
90,000+
households across 4 countries received malaria education from malaria volunteers
Year:
2022
1,500
1,500 malaria volunteers across 4 countries provide door to door malaria education and mobilize their communities to take action against malaria
96%
of households that had access to good quality ITNs in Cuando Cubango, Angola program areas used them, according to KAP survey data
87%
The percent of women who gave birth during the previous 12 months in Zambia program areas who took at least one dose of preventive treatment for malaria, according to KAP survey data
92%
of households in Zimbabwe program areas accepted and received indoor residual spraying to prevent malaria (out of all those targeted for the intervention), according to KAP survey data