Malawi - Moyo ndi Mpamba Campaign Malaria Comic Book

The comic book, part of the Moyo ndi Mpamba, Usamalireni (“Life is precious, take care of it”) campaign, tells the story of Chimwemwe, a primary school girl who suffers from malaria and is absent from school, can’t play and loses her appetite. She receives an anti-malaria drug (Artemether Lumefantrine) at a health center, completes the dosage, is healed, and her life goes back to normal. To reinforce what students have read, the book also contains other activities that include a quiz, a game and a role-play scenario. The comic book is accompanied by a fact sheet for use by teachers.

SSDI-Communication printed 27,050 copies of the comic book in English and Chichewa and distributed these to 2,337 schools and reading centers in 16 districts of the country. In addition to increasing knowledge levels, the malaria comic book stimulated prevention and control behaviors among pupils (e.g. sleeping under a net, cutting down grass, removing stagnant water, early attendance to the clinic upon onset of fever, and completing the dosage of the anti- malarial drug). Apart from the health benefits, the comic book has promoted reading culture amongst school going children, and supplements reading materials in schools.

SSDI-Communication supported the Ministry of Health in realizing its ambitious health promotion agenda by developing and running a multimedia, multi-level Moyo ndi Mpamba, Usamalireni (“Life is precious, take care of it”) campaign, from 2011-2016. The ultimate goal of this campaign was to promote positive health behaviors and create demand for available services across six focus health areas – HIV & AIDS; family planning; nutrition; maternal, neonatal and child health; malaria; and water, sanitation and hygiene – and with audiences across the socio-ecological landscape and all targeted life stages.