By Kwenda Paipi, World Vision Zambia
Like most women in her community, Freviour Daka is a mother and a housewife, who lives in a compound that is part of World Vision’s Zamtan Area Development Program (ADP) in Zambia. But the 31-year-old is not like most mothers and is more than just a housewife.
Freviour also works to help members in her community overcome the challenges of malaria. She devotes a significant proportion of her time caring for and educating others on the dangers of the pandemic with a special focus on prevention.
“I joined the caregivers work because I saw how bad it was in this area when we had people who were dying of malaria. Most died because of ignorance and I wanted to help others learn how they could fight malaria,” Freviour says.
Freviour, who has been a caregiver since 1997, says that caregivers face challenges when there is no money to get the patient to the clinic, but through God’s grace the solution to the challenge is somehow found.
“We can go to Mashula community based organization if the funds cannot be sourced anywhere and from there we are assisted with funds to help transport the patient to a nearby clinic. Or at times we have to go to Kitwe Central Hospital, which is about 40 km from the area,” she says. This organization was established with the help of World Vision to enable sustainable. Freviour says that at times the caregivers use wheelbarrows and bicycles to carry malaria patients to the hospitals.
The group of caregivers embarked on a preventive measures campaign, realizing very well that prevention is better than cure. They informed community members about ways to ensure that there are no mosquito breeding grounds near their homes. But, most importantly, caregivers have distributed bed nets that have enabled many to avoid mosquito bites.
“In 2007, World Vision facilitated a bed net distribution exercise and as caregivers, we started training people on how to use bed nets before distributing them to every household,” she says. “We first called for a community meeting and we educated the people in this area about the importance of preventing our children from dying from malaria.”
Freviour reveals that even those that initially resisted their work have come to appreciate the role that she and her team are playing to help a myriad of community members curb malaria, which has led to so many deaths. “Through our caregiver work, we have managed to serve so many lives. There are people who have now become more aware and are using bed nets to protect their families,” she says.
The work of Freviour and other caregivers has not been in vain as evident by the current statistics showing a significant reduction of deaths in the area and the number of people that demonstrate how to hang a net.
“After our massive bed net campaign, malaria cases have drastically reduced and deaths have also been prevented. I remember that I had a client who died of malaria just before we started the bed net distribution exercise,” she recalls. “Per year, we could have four to five deaths just in our compound, but now we rarely hear that someone has died from malaria.”
