Since 2005, Soles4Souls has given away over 5.5 million pairs of new and gently worn shoes (currently donating one pair every 9 seconds.) The shoes have been distributed to people in over 125 countries, including Kenya, Thailand, Nepal and the United States. Soles4Souls has been featured in Runner's World, Ladies’ Home Journal, National Geographic’s Green Guide, and The New York Times. It has appeared on CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, BBC, CNN and thousands of regional news outlets across North America. Soles4Souls is a 501©(3) recognized by the IRS and donating parties are eligible for tax advantages. Anyone can join our cause, and we need your help.

More Information

Website: www.soles4souls.org

sources: soles4souls.org

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Malaria Kills

Malaria is a disease caused by the blood parasite Plasmodium, which is transmitted by mosquitoes. Malaria, from the Medieval Italian words mala aria or “bad air,” infects more than 500 million people a year and kills more than a million; one person dies about every 30 seconds.

Malaria is particularly devastating in Africa, where it is a leading killer of children. In addition to being home to the deadliest strain of malaria and the mosquito best equipped to transmit the disease, many areas in Africa lack the proper infrastructure and resources to fight back.

The disease is a self-perpetuating problem with large-scale impact on societies and economies. Malaria accounts for up to half of all hospital admissions and outpatient visits in Africa. In addition to the burden on the health system, malaria illness and death cost Africa approximately $12 billion a year in lost productivity. The effects permeate almost every sector. Malaria increases school absenteeism, decreases tourism, inhibits foreign investment, and even affects the type of crops that are grown.

Malaria is Both Preventable and Treatable

Malaria is both a preventable and treatable disease. It can be prevented by giving families and individuals insecticide-treated bed nets to sleep under and taking steps to kill mosquitoes where they breed and when they enter houses to feed at night. At the same time, anti-malarial drugs such as artemisinin and other combination therapies that are widely available can treat malaria before it becomes deadly.

Malaria has been brought under control and even eliminated in many parts of Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Yet in Africa, with increasing drug resistance and struggling health systems, malaria infections have actually increased during the last three decades.

Bed Nets

Despite the magnitude of the problem, there is a simple and cost-effective solution to prevent malaria deaths. For just $10, we can purchase a bed net, deliver it to a family, and explain its use. Bed nets work by creating a protective barrier against mosquitoes at night, when the vast majority of transmissions occur. A family of four can sleep under an insecticide-treated bed net, safe from malaria, for up to four years. The benefits of bed nets extend even further than the family. When enough nets are used, the insecticide used to deter mosquitoes makes entire communities safer; including even those individuals who do not have nets.

Although $10 for a bed net may not sound like much, the cost makes them out of reach for most people at risk of malaria, many of whom survive on less than $1 a day. Nets are a simple, life-saving solution, but we need your help to provide them to those in need.

How Nothing But Nets works

Nothing But Nets is powered by your passion; it works because you do! Create a community for your church, school, team, or family and friends. Together, you can spread the word, raise funds, and share your stories.

With the money you raise, the UN Foundation and its partners work with the Measles Initiative — one of the most successful vaccination efforts ever undertaken — to purchase bed nets and distribute them in countries and communities in greatest need.

Using its proven distribution system — which in just five years has vaccinated nearly a quarter billion children — the Measles Initiative will distribute bed nets along with measles vaccinations and other medicines to at-risk countries. It’s an effective and cost-efficient way to get the nets to the people who need them.

How You Can Help

At NothingButNets.net you will find resources on malaria, toolkits that you can download to help you raise awareness and organize fundraising events, and the ability to create or join a Netraiser team.

Sign up as a Netraiser Team Captain to recruit your friends, family and co-workers to help support you in raising money for bed nets to prevent malaria in Africa. As a Team Captain, you can invite people to join your team so they too can ask their friends to sponsor them within your team or simply ask for sponsors.

And, check out the success of our first-ever World Malaria Day!

Working together, we can cover Africa with lifesaving bed nets.

Website:

www.nothingbutnets.net

Sources: nothingbutnets.net

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New Eyes for the Needy purchases new eyeglasses for poor children and adults in the United States and recycles donated glasses for distribution to indigent people in developing nations worldwide.

Our mission is focused: to improve the vision of poor children and adults by

–purchasing new eyeglasses in the United States, and

- recycling donated glasses for distribution in developing nations worldwide.

Since our founding in 1932, New Eyes has improved the eyesight of more than 7,000,000 people in the U.S. and around the world.

For about $60, New Eyes for the Needy can improve a person’s life. Each new pair of glasses purchased by New Eyes helps an American child succeed in school, an adult secure a job, or a senior citizen read medicine labels. Our recycled glasses bring clearer vision to scores of people living in poverty overseas.

In 2007 New Eyes provided eyeglasses to 5,945 needy residents of the U.S. and 281,260 people in developing nations.

Website:

www.neweyesfortheneedy.org

Sources: neweyesfortheneedy.org

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