WORLDbytes
The UK education charity and its alternative news channel WORLDbytes has released a filmed report entitled “Early to Bed-Net” as a challenge to campaigners organising World Malaria Day commemorations on Saturday 25th April, 2009. The report criticises campaigners’
As African volunteer Helder Da Costa says in the report: “It’s the west’s ban on DDT that has killed people and is killing people. Telling the truth would be a start and boat loads of DDT not bed nets would make a huge impact.” Young volunteer Ben Hoyte explains further: “When I was a kid in Barbados I had to go to bed early under a net until they started spraying. Now I don’t have to spend half my life in bed, under a net and I don’t see why anyone else should have to either. Campaigners proudly announce that for £5 you can provide a bed net for an African, it’s as if all that’s needed is to pull on that little ‘do something good’ muscle in the brain and we’ll all live happily ever after. Well millions won’t, bed nets do not solve the problem and it’s a lie to say they do.”
Director Ceri Dingle said today: “There is something quite nauseating about a campaign which treats Africa as a continent of little children that should go to bed early under a charity veil, otherwise known as a bed net. It is sadly consistent with Western low horizons, environmental prejudice and guilt inspired giving. The World Malaria Day in the West reflects the modern missionary position and the ‘feel good’ syndrome that at least we’re doing something. If campaigners were serious about the eradication of malaria, pesticides would be number one on the agenda.”
The report which features twelve feisty young UK volunteers with families from different parts of the world, is available to view at http://www.worldbytes.org/
The filmed report “Early to Bed-Net” was created by WORLDbytes, an alternative on-line channel of programmes created by young volunteers which aims to get behind the headlines and promote a people-first perspective on a wide-range of issues. The programme’s credo is “don’t shout at the telly, change the message on it”.
The WORLDbytes online channel is available at www.worldbytes.org
For more information and interviews contact:
Ceri Dingle, Director of the online news channel, WORLDbytes
Email: ceridingle@btconnect.com Tel: +44 (0)7939 449 604 or +44 (0)20 8985 5435
Viv Regan, Co Director of the online news channel, WORLDbytes
Email: vivregan@btconnect.com Tel: +44 (0)7939 449 604 or +44 (0)20 8985 5435
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
