Hello! I'm Chris Helfrich, the new director for the UN Foundation's Nothing But Nets campaign.
Like many of you, five years ago, I read Rick Reilly’s column in Sports Illustrated. I learned that malaria — a preventable disease — killed a child every 30 seconds in Africa. I read that an insecticide-treated net can protect a family from the disease, and discovered how easy it is to send a net and save a life by giving just $10.
After sending my first net, I continued to follow Nothing But Nets and became even more inspired by all you’re doing to fight malaria. Last year, supporters like you and me helped change a statistic: now, a child in Africa dies every 45 seconds from malaria. This is incredible progress — but just one death from malaria is one too many. We have a lot more work to do, and that’s why I'm excited to get more involved with Nothing But Nets.
Nothing But Nets works because we’re powered by you and your passion to send nets and save lives. This year, we’ll be creating even more ways for you to take action and get involved in the fight against malaria – and I’d love to hear your ideas.
From our website to our t-shirts, I know you’ve got great new ideas for how we can improve things to keep building the buzz and inspiring even more people to join the movement to end malaria. Email me at Chris@NothingButNets.net with your thoughts, opinions, and suggestions about how you think we can achieve the global goal of ending malaria deaths by 2015 (or even sooner!).
I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together.