Madonna who is scheduled to perform at this Sunday's Bridgestone Superbowl Halftime show, is about to release a new film and a new album still feels the passion to follow through on her vow to help Malawi's neediest children receive an education.

"This remains a very big priority in my life and I am excited that with the help of buildOn we can maintain our ongoing commitment to move forward efficiently. We now  will be able to serve twice as many children as we would have served with our old approach," said Madonna.  Raising Malawi, Madonna's charity,  previously ran into various difficulties in their original effort to build a girls academy.  "I have learned a great deal over the last few years and feel so much more confident that we can reach out goals to educate children in Malawi, especially young girls, in a much more efficient and practical way.  Constructing smaller schools in partnership with buildOn has restored my faith that we can accomplish what we promised we would" concluded Madonna.

Consistently ranked among the world's 20 least developed countries on the UN's Human Development Index, Malawi has long been challenged by economic stagnation and a lack of access to education. With support from Raising Malawi, buildOn will leverage their 19 years of experience in Malawi to construct 10 new schools with the capacity to educate at least 1,000 children per year, half of whom are girls. Malawi has over a half a million children orphaned from the Aids epidemic.  Raising Malawi has helped support many of these children for the last several years through various programs.

"Because of Madonna and Raising Malawi's support, we will be able to build schools for children that the rest of the world has left behind. Generations of children will have access to education and be empowered to break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and low expectations," said Jim Ziolkowski, Founder and CEO of buildOn.

About buildOn

buildOn is a non-governmental organization that is breaking the cycle of poverty, illiteracy and low expectations through service and education. Since 1991, buildOn has brought literacy to girls and boys and their parents and grandparents, in developing countries around the world. In the U.S., buildOn's afterschool service programs mobilize urban teens to lift up their communities through intensive local service and change the world and by building schools in some of the poorest countries on the planet.  To date, buildOn has constructed 427 schoolhouses worldwide, including 54 schoolhouses in villages in Malawi. http://www.buildon.org/

About Raising Malawi

Raising Malawi was founded in 2006 to bring an end to the extreme poverty and hardship endured by Malawi's 1.4 million orphans and vulnerable children.  Raising Malawi supports community-based organizations that provide these children and their caregivers with critical resources including food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, and psychosocial support. http://www.raisingmalawi.org

• Over 95% of the girls in the program were able to stay in school
• There is a waiting list of other girls interested in joining the program
• Girls report feeling more comfortable attending school during menstruation
• Teachers have noticed improved attendance, and optimism that more girls will reach their senior classes without having to worry about missing school

Samantha and Rosemary are excited by the progress and achievements of S.A.M. To date, they have raised over $12K for this program. They plan to expand the program to more girls and more schools throughout Malawi. Hopefully, S.A.M can inspire others to find and support solutions like this one.

Below is a photo of girls in the S.A.M. program from its initial launch in 2010.

Photo of Samantha in Malawi:

Read More: "1 person killed during violent Malawi riots" from the Associate Press

Since that time Global Philanthropy's team has helped the board of Raising Malawi make major organizational and management changes, and has also filed the necessary paperwork with the IRS to allow Raising Malawi to be an independent 501c3 organization.  The new strategy of Raising Malawi will be announced in the coming weeks once discussions with experts in the field and partner organizations have been finalized.

For any questions about Global Philanthropy Group's work with Raising Malawi please email contact@globalphilanthropy.com.

Madonna issued the following statement:

I remain deeply committed and am more passionate than ever about helping the children of Malawi — especially the girls. In a country where only 33% of Malawian girls attend secondary school, I realize that the plans we had in place for the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls simply would not serve enough children. My original vision is now on a much bigger scale. I want to reach thousands not hundreds of girls. I want to do more and I want to do it better. While I am grateful to all the people who have given me guidance and support up until now, we are in the process of implementing several changes and additions to the management of Raising Malawi in both the US and Malawi. I am also working with Trevor Neilson and his team at Global Philanthropy Group to shift the strategies that we had in place so that we can accomplish our goals with more efficiency as we continue to consult with our government partners in Malawi. This is a larger challenge than I thought, but I welcome it. We are focused on an approach, which builds schools within communities across the country. We are currently determining the size, location, staffing and curriculum of the schools. I will continue to monitor the process of reaching these goals here and through my ongoing visits to Malawi.

Neilson, whose company Global Philanthropy Group advises some of the world's leading philanthropists, was positive about the shift in strategy. "Raising Malawi's new community-based approach will provide the opportunity for many more girls to receive a quality education. We are focused on ensuring the most efficient implementation of this new strategy in collaboration with Raising Malawi's partners on the ground." Neilson also noted the many achievements of Raising Malawi including the construction of a model orphan care center in partnership with Malawi's largest community-based organization as well as assistance to thousands of HIV+ children and caregivers through life saving medical treatments and daily nutritious meals and nutrition supplements. Additional programming has also provided thousands of children and caregivers in the south of the country with access to clean water through the implementation of piped safe water and the construction of new boreholes.

The MCC, an agency created by President George W. Bush to promote growth and reward democratic governance in poor countries, has provided Malawi with the funds to renovate older power stations and improve distribution networks.  The move follows on the heels of President Obama's U.S. Global Policy, which focuses on economic growth, country ownership, sustainability, and accountability in developing countries.

According to MCC CEO Daniel Yohannes:

"MCC looks forward to continuing our work with Malawi as this compact program advances to implementation. Success of the program will depend on the Government of Malawi's continued commitment to good governance, accountability, and transparency."

The grant award comes after last month's announcement by Malawi's Energy Minister Grain Malunga of the planned construction of a new 300 megawatt coal-fired power plant. The construction project will be first step towards meeting Malawi's rising demand for electricity. As a country with large naturally-occurring coal reserves, infrastructure is the key element missing in securing a stable energy future for Malawi.

The MCC and the Government of Malawi expect nearly 6 million Malawians will benefit from the grant, both during and after the completion of its five-year contract.

A closer view of the situation reveals that the women of Malawi are disproportionately impacted by HIV and AIDS. Not only are they more likely to fall prey to the infection, they are also expected to shoulder the burden of acting as caretakers for those who are ill — a traditionally female role.

"A Voluntary Service Overseas Regional AIDS Initiative Southern Africa and World Health Organization study found that in six SADC countries (Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe) at least 72% of secondary care providers are women."

Thoko Mussa, a national coordinator for the Society for Women and AIDS in Malawi (SWAM), points out that in many cases women in abusive relationships are expected to take on the burden of caring for their husband when he becomes ill. When the situation is flipped and it is the wife who falls sick from HIV-related illnesses, the husband can go as far as to divorce his wife, and call upon his mother-in-law to take the role of caretaker.

These gendered norms need to change if the devastating toll on Malawian women is to be reversed. Men and women alike are joining forces to partner in the fight against AIDS, challenge gender disparities, and work to educate more individuals in communities scarred by violence.

National HIV plans and the 2008–2011 UN Development Action Fund (UNDAF) have highlighted the link between gender and HIV and AIDS and have received commendation from the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). Domestic violence legislation passed in Malawi in 2006, raising even greater awareness of the issue. But implementing these plans on the ground requires grassroots involvement to bring light to the issue community-by-community, home-by-home.

That's why bringing educational opportunities to the children of Malawi is one of the main goals of Raising Malawi. Paired with effective treatments for HIV and AIDS, educating children across primary and secondary schools can make a tangible impact on a new generation of leaders.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which convenes on December 13, will have the final decision to continue HIV/AIDS funding in many low-income countries in desperate need of continued ARV treatments. As the financial arm for the Millennium Development Goal, the Global Fund has the unique position to:

"Determine to a large extent how close countries come to achieving the health-related MDGs in the coming years," according to Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund.

Unfortunately with many donor pledges falling short, and government organizations pulling their own aid organizations from the field in several countries, the Global Fund may be forced to reject proposals.

This news worries many directly invested in the fight against HIV/AIDS, including Jerome Oberreit, MSF's Operational Director.

"Today's funding situation is nothing short of a crisis. If donors rely on the Global Fund to act as the last standing domino piece in the fight against HIV, they need to provide it with the necessary resources to respond according to needs ... in the absence of firm political commitments, the Global Fund will be forced to ration its funding and in turn, AIDS prevention and treatment."

Without the continued donations of past years, and the full commitment of world leaders, proposals will face greater scrutiny and may be rejected in the latest round of fund replenishments.

"MSF is seriously concerned that several low-income countries with high HIV-prevalence, such as Malawi, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and Lesotho, risk being denied funding for HIV and TB in this round."

Malawi has made greater access to AIDS treatment a priority, and worked closely with the WHO to craft a forward-thinking plan to treat AIDS at all stages. With nearly 225,000 Malawians undergoing treatment countrywide, cutting funding short would take a disastrous toll on their forward progress.

Raising Malawi has worked closely to address the paramount issue of HIV and AIDS in Malawi, working to give over 66,000 children and caregivers living with HIV/AIDS, malaria, or other diseases life saving treatments and care.

Working one step at a time to increase global awareness, sustaining ongoing projects with your donations, and volunteering your time to tackle this difficult issue are just a few ways that you can get involved.

We're fast approaching 10,000 followers here on the official Raising Malawi fan page. Push us past this benchmark by urging family and friends to like our page.

Yes, it's only a number, but it's not a trivial number to us; more followers means greater awareness, and that leads to more support for Raising Malawi.

Thank you,
Raising Malawi staff

Raising Malawi is a proud supporter of the Millennium Development Goals and is heavily involved in the village of Gumulira. You can learn more about their progress in meeting MDGs here.

However, these programs often fail to reach sex workers, a high-risk population that must be engaged if we are to have any hope of containing the spread of the virus. This is problematic in countries mired in poverty and instability, where a sizable number of defenseless girls and women can become trapped in this nefarious trade, often against their wills.

Empowering Women to Leave the Sex Trade

To address this gap in fighting HIV/AIDS, Raising Malawi joined Partners In Health (PIH), whose founders include Paul Farmer, in supporting a Women's Empowerment Group at Zalewa, a trading center built on a heavily traveled stretch of road connecting Lilongwe and Blantyre, two of Malawi's major cities.

The program at Zalewa offers commercial sex worker the resources necessary to transition into safer lines of work, in addition to much-needed medical testing and treatment. The health programs available to women include: family planning visits, cervical cancer screening and treatment, syphilis testing, HIV testing, and sexually transmitted infection (STI) treatment. Additionally, women can obtain vocational training; work at Mtendere, an onsite restaurant co-op run by former sex workers; or take English courses.

Zalewa employees and volunteers have been sending Raising Malawi quarterly reports since we began supporting their work. The news has been encouraging—progress that we would qualify as a success.

Success of the Women's Empowerment Group at Zalewa

The developments over the past two quarters include:

• Contacts on the ground call the restaurant a great success, generating upwards of $1,300 a month.
• Because revenue has been so good, the restaurant workers decided to invest 20% of the profits back into the empowerment program and are considering expanding.
• There were 417 to the family planning clinic, an encouraging turnout.
• Women continue using screening programs and seeking out treatment when needed.
• The empowerment center has started an agricultural training program, planting soybeans and other crops.

In addition to this work, Partners In Health and the Women's Empowerment Group continue to work with the Social Welfare Department to get the group recognized as a Community Based Organization. Recognition will increase cooperation between PIH and the group.

Read this inspiring story about Zalewa on the Partners In Health site.

My birthday this week was such a blessing for me. I was surrounded by dear friends, my loving family, and by you.

The notes I received from the Raising Malawi family were simply beautiful—both in their kindness and their concern for the children of Malawi. Thank you for making my birthday so special.

The note from Sylvia in Great Britain is a message for all of us:

May Malawi, and its beautiful people, be raised through the generosity of those who share your dreams. Thank you for the work you do and the joy you give to your fans worldwide. We are all better people for being connected.

I love how Sylvia echoed the African philosophy ubuntu—I am because we are. We do share a common fate. And we must continue to dream of a better future.

That’s why it’s so important that we stay connected with each other. I hope you will help us raise awareness about Malawi by joining our Facebook community:

http://www.facebook.com/RaisingMalawi

Along with the birthday wishes, many of you took the opportunity to make a donation to our work in Malawi. Again, thank you all!

From Alvaro in Mexico City to Esther in Istanbul, your generous donations totaling over $18,000 touched my heart and will change the lives of so many children. I truly cannot think of a better birthday gift.

Thank you again for being a part of this community and the work most dear to my heart.

Gratefully yours,

Madonna

P.S. If you would like to donate to Raising Malawi today, I will match your donation—doubling its impact on the lives of the Malawi children.

The teachers from the Melete Foundation have posted photographs of their trip on Flickr (view them here). If you have not already, you should take the time to go through this amazing collection of images. It is truly heartwarming — very inspiring snapshots of their work with deserving children.

The teachers traveled to Malawi as part of the Melete Foundation's International Teacher Program. The program was a collaboration between the Melete Foundation and Raising Malawi.

You can read our first post about the program here.

Today is Madonna's birthday. Her dedication to the 2 million orphaned and vulnerable children of Malawi has inspired so many of us. So this year, for her birthday, we wanted to honor her by saying, "Thank you."
Join Raising Malawi in sharing a birthday message with Madonna now.

Send your message here.

The three fellows, all American teachers, are getting a first-hand look at the serious challenges facing Malawi's educational system. While in Malawi, the teachers are using a journal to record their thoughts, observations and experiences.

Fellow Zakiyyah Ali is a community organizer and history teacher at the High School for Global Citizenship in Brooklyn, New York. Working with students and teachers in Malawi fits perfectly into Zakiyyah's global philosophy: we all have so much to learn from the world that surrounds us.

Check out Zakiyyah's journal entry from August 2:

For the past two days, July 29th and July 30th, I have visited with the teachers of the Millennium Village in Gumulira. This is a primary educational facility, schooling students from Standards 1 to 8 (in the American system this would Kindergarten to 8th grade)... the teachers travel exorbitant distances to reach the school by 7:30 AM, usually by local bike riders. There is no government transport system to provide for its teachers. The pay is very little and the teachers are extremely overworked. During the regular school year, the class size can be as large as 75 students or more! With this increase in the amount of students, there is still only one teacher, very few, if any resources, and yet the expectation remains the same — to educate. While there are teachers who are able to demonstrate minimally good methodological practices to engage a particular class, school-wide there is not the demonstration of best practices.

To read all of the journal entries from Melete fellows Ian, Jebediah and Zakiyyah, click here.

Find out how you can get involved and help raise Malawi here.

What was the situation like at the start of the project in Gumulira?

The project was launched in September 2006 to address a major challenge of food insecurity caused by limited access to improved hybrid maize seed and inorganic fertilizers. Maize production was as low as 1.2 to 1.5 metric tons or less. As such, food insecurity was prevalent during some months of the year. The project area also faced a challenge of limited and difficult access to medical services, with the nearest health facility being over 10 kilometers away. Access to clean water was also a prevailing situation, with a majority of the people using unsafe water drawn from shallow and open wells, predisposing the people to various water-borne diseases. There was a poor learning environment for primary school pupils, with inadequate or no classrooms (learning under a tree and borrowed church facilities) in one of the schools in Gumulira. Deforestation due to tobacco production and other environmental mismanagement practices continues to threaten Gumulira, making it vulnerable to devastating climatic changes. There is no electricity in Gumulira, neither is there a piped water system.

How has the village benefited directly from the project / Raising Malawi support?

Gumulira has implemented a number of development interventions to close some of the development gaps described above. For example, there has been the provision of hybrid maize seed and inorganic fertilizers, thereby realizing increased production of maize from an average of between 1.2–1.5 metric tons per hectare to 4.27–5.6 metric tons per hectare. This has created a food surplus situation and, the surplus production has been used as a source of income and contributing to the school feeding program in the project, currently reaching up to 1,864 pupils. The project also benefited from the distribution of 700 female and 30 males goats on a “pass-on scheme,” and just over 130 goats have been passed on to secondary beneficiaries.

Although the project has had no physical structure in the form of a health facility, access to health services has been significantly improved by conducting integrated outreach clinics twice per week and a school health intervention. Over 6,000 people have been treated over the past four years and distance to access health services has been reduced from 10km (over six miles) to about 2km (just over one mile). The project drilled six new boreholes and repaired 16 non-functional ones and, therefore, providing clean water to over 5,000 people. Community members were trained on maintenance of the water points to ensure continuous availability of potable water.

Gumulira has also benefited from the construction of a new school with four classrooms. As a result, the government upgraded the school from standard 2 to standard 4. Gumulira has also benefited from improved communication through the erection of a tower by Zain Malawi under Millennium Promise partnership with Ericsson.

What is the most memorable story coming from the village?

One of the memorable stories is that community members in Gumulira harvested more maize per unit area than the national average production. Therefore, households have had adequate food over the past four years and were able contribute two bags of maize (100kg) for the school meals program and the surplus was used to purchase a US$17,000.00 truck to support the construction of the community center in Gumulira. The truck is being used as a business venture for the Gumulira community and is also used to ferry various materials including bricks, sand, quarry, stone, cement and irons sheets for community projects. Another story concerns the improved access to medical services saw the reduction in travel distance from 10 km to a maximum 2km through the introduction integrated outreach health services. This has provided easy family planning services with an increase in contraceptive prevalence rate from 20%–62%. And for outpatients services over 6,000 people have been treated with an average of 40% of those treated coming from outside Gumulira. The provision of health services gave rise to the formation of a Community Based Organization (CBO) and an HIV and AIDS support group providing group therapy.

If more support / resources were to become available, how would these resources be used, what would be the expected impact?

Additional resources would be applied for completing the construction of staff houses for a health facility and construction of additional school blocks and teachers’ houses. The additional support would also be applied towards scaling up the project from only covering 5,000 people to 20,000–25,000. This would mean more people having access to safe drinking water, directly improving health by reducing illness cause by water-borne diseases; more people with access to opportunities for agricultural inputs on loan and other business loans for economic empowerment and for food production.

Additional support/resources would also be applied for improving energy supply for the village by connecting the village to the national electricity grid and giving more business opportunities in the village, including processing and pumping water for irrigation purposes. A gravity-fed piped-water system is another project for additional resources.

How has the support from Raising Malawi changed the long-term outlook for the community at Gumulira?

The support for Raising Malawi has indeed changed the long-term outlook of the Gumulira community. For example, the community school now has a new school and six additional classrooms, complete with school meals kitchens. The community now has a multi-purpose community center, the meeting place for Gumulira. The Gumulira community is now connected to the world through the provision of a network cellular phone within a 15 km radius (over nine miles). The number of cellular phones is ever on the increase from ZERO in September 2006 to over 400 in July 2010.

The provision of agricultural inputs and hybrid maize seed has completely changed the food security situation and the maize planting technology of one seed per planting station has changed the production system. Access to clean water has now assured that the various water committees entered into maintenance contracts of their water points with an area mechanic.

Receive Gumulira updates from Raising Malawi.

To learn how you can support the work of Raising Malawi, please visit here.

Director Nathan Rissman and team would like to send a special thanks to all our supporters for making this possible. Associate producer Grant James accepted the award at the ceremony.

The program is a collaboration between the Melete Foundation, Raising Malawi, and the Joyce Banda Foundation International.

From July 15 to August 17, the teachers will travel around Malawi visiting schools and orphanages. In collaboration with the partner foundations, the teachers will work with local teachers and students to develop lesson plans and create programs to improve education at these facilities. The three teachers will also construct lesson plans from their time in Africa to teach their students in the states about the Malawian culture.

Click to learn more about the Melete Foundation or the Joyce Banda Foundation.

Follow the Melete Foundation's activities on Twitter here.

The numbers are startling: about one-third of Malawians contract malaria every year; the vast majority of the disease’s victims are vulnerable children.

This effort, which includes researchers from University of Maryland, University of Michigan and Harvard, among others, will create a self-sustained research collaborative capable of developing new anti-malaria strategies.

According to Dr. Taylor, Malawi is an ideal location for the study:

With its political will, track record in malaria research and ecological diversity, [Malawi] has the potential to be a site for transformative research on malaria control, prevention and elimination.

Bolstering Health Care in Malawi

Raising Malawi is ramping up its efforts to rid Malawi of preventable diseases. For more information, read the latest blog post from Peter Hotez, MD, PhD.

Dr. Hotez, the President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, recently joined Raising Malawi's Medical Advisory Committee as a special advisor on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD).

If you have not been touched by this documentary already, then be sure to watch it to see why and how Madonna came to care so much for the people of Malawi.

The Council for Non Governmental Organisations in Malawi, an umbrella body for NGOs, had urged the government to,

[C]onsider mobilizing resources for relief operations other than wait until the ugly face of this [possible] catastrophe begins to take its toll on the people".

If no funding can be found by October, the number of vulnerable Malawians will grow from 718,000 today to approximately 1.1 million.

Ending Hunger in Malawi

Raising Malawi works with community based organizations to ensure the hungry get the help they need. Learn more about how you can partner with Madonna and Raising Malawi to make news of grain and resource shortages a thing of the past.

Image by Swathi Sridharan used under Creative Commons. Click here to view more work.

The NTDs are a group of 13 parasitic and bacterial infections affecting an estimated 1.4 billion people living on less than $1.25 per day—a group sometimes referred to as the “bottom billion”. Intestinal worms (hookworm. roundworm and tapeworm), schistosomiasis (snail fever/bilharzia), lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), and onchocerciasis (river blindness) are among the most common seven NTDs. These infections result in lifelong disability and adversely affect childhood development and worker productivity.

Many are surprised to learn that the majority of the bottom billion and most Malawians suffer from at least one NTD. Of the 14 million people who live in Malawi, 11 million are at risk for infection with schistosomiasis and almost all of the children have intestinal worms. Typically these worms live throughout their childhood years and the consequences are devastating. Hookworm infection and schistosomiasis stunt physical growth and fitness and also reduce intelligence and memory. As a consequence, NTDs are one of the leading health problems in Malawi and a major reason why children do not learn or succeed in school. Ultimately, when these children grow to become adults are less successful when they enter the work force. Research indicates that hookworm, and presumably other NTDs, reduce future wage earning by 43%.

Adults are also deeply affected by the NTDs. Much of the adult population of Malawi suffers from the NTD known as lymphatic filariasis, which causes a disfiguring condition of the limbs and genitals. As a consequence, they are too sick to go to work and harvest crops. Another NTD, onchocerciasis, transmitted by infected Simulium black flies living near streams, rivers, and other bodies of water, is a leading cause of blindness. More than one million people in Malawi are at risk for river blindness.

NTDs are particularly devastating for young girls and women. In Malawi, schistosomiasis results in ulcers of the cervix and uterus, so that young girls grow up suffering from chronic genital pain and bleeding. New information also indicates that these ulcers increase the susceptibility of girls and young women to HIV/AIDS three-fold. In Malawi, schistosomiasis is an important co-factor in the country’s AIDS epidemic. Furthermore, lymphatic filariasis stigmatizes girls and women and prevents them from marrying or holding and caring for their children—even though the disease is not transmitted by physical contact.

But there is hope. At the Global Network for NTDs we are promoting a package of drugs, (sometimes called the “rapid impact” package) most of which are either donated by the pharmaceutical companies or the drugs are available at extremely low cost. Indeed, we can control or prevent the most common NTDs such as intestinal worm infections, schistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis, and onchocerciasis with the rapid impact package and do this for as little as 50 cents per person per year! Imagine taking on a group of diseases that affect more than 1 in 6 people worldwide—more than HIV/AIDs, TB, and malaria combined—for less than US $1 annually!

In the coming weeks and months I look forward to writing additional blog posts on NTDs and calling attention to the plight of Malawi’s poorest who needlessly suffer from these conditions. In the meantime, I am providing some links on our papers in the New England Journal of Medicine, and Public Library of Science so you can learn more about the NTDs in Africa, as well as my book Forgotten People, Forgotten Diseases.

I am excited that Madonna has lent her time to learn more about NTDs and how they affect the people she cares about in Malawi.

The 16th century Kabbalist, Rabbi Isaac Luria, admonishes us to “repair the world” tikkun olam, embarking on an ambitious initiative to eliminate the NTDs in Malawi and elsewhere in Africa represents the most vital and urgent way I can think of to initiate repair.

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While there has been much good news to report from Malawi and Africa lately, we must remember there is plenty of work to be done.

Last week Thierry Durand, an operations director for Doctors Without Borders, wrote that it is time to acknowledge clear "systemic failures in measles prevention programs" in Africa.

Durand's statement came in response to the unfortunate fact that measles epidemics persist despite long-running vaccinations programs.

It has been especially discouraging that stable countries such as Malawi, Mozambique, and South Africa have been experiencing outbreaks, as warring countries and conflict traditionally bear this burden. Durand noted, "[t]here’s a problem if such epidemics occur in countries such as these, and it can only indicate dysfunctions or weaknesses in the routine vaccination system."

In the past six months, a measles outbreak in Malawi has killed 82 Malawians, predominantly children, and infected more than 17,000. Each case of measles was completely preventable.

Efforts are underway in rural areas to raise awareness and encourage vaccination and treatment.

Image by Julien Harneis. Republished here under Creative Commons. Click to view more work.

The good news ensures breastfeeding is a viable option for thousands of HIV-positive mothers in Malawi and across Africa.

According to Roger Shapiro, author of a study from Havard’s School of Public Health, 

“What we found is that when we started any of the regimens during pregnancy, during the third trimester of pregnancy, and continued them through six months of breast feeding, we had extremely low rates of mother-to-child transmission (of HIV).“

These encouraging results highlight the need to aggressively find, test and treat HIV-positive pregnant women.

For more information on the devastating cost of HIV/AIDS in Malawi and how to stop the epidemic, click here.

Read the full article here.

You can read Study #1 here.

You can read Study #2 here.

If you have not been touched by this documentary already, then be sure to watch it to see why and how Madonna came to care so much for the people of Malawi.

I have always believed love conquers all - yesterday I got to see it in action.

In the last week over 30,000 of you added your name to mine calling for the release of Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga - the Malawi couple sentenced to 14 years hard labor for the "crime" of homosexuality. With incredible joy, I am writing to share with you that Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika has ordered their release. Steven and Tiwonge were freed on Saturday night.

They have won their freedom and you have been a part of it.

We celebrate this astounding turn of events with Steven, Tiwonge, and the countless Malawians fighting for their release. It is a historic day for Malawi.

Though they are free from prison, sadly their safety and future in Malawi is still unknown. I hope this is just the beginning of our work together.

Human rights injustices continue for so many Malawians facing poverty, disease, and a lack of critical resources. There are still over two million orphans and vulnerable children who need to experience love's embrace.

It is going to take the love and creativity of all of us to bring justice to the people of Malawi.  

Thank you for joining me in Raising Malawi.

With great love,
Madonna

Share your thoughts with Madonna on this important day in Malawi:
http://www.raisingmalawi.org/lovewins

Betsy McKay writes:

'We're seeing a larger and more accelerated decrease than we thought,' said Christopher J.L.Murray, the institute's director and lead author of the study, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 'In many developing regions, the rates of decline in the last decade are speeding up compared to the 1990s.'

Those regions include all of sub-Saharan Africa, where nearly 50% of deaths in children under five occur. Rates of mortality in children under age five are declining at more than 2% a year in 25 sub-Saharan African countries, with progress particularly strong in Madagascar, Malawi, and Ethiopia, among other countries, Dr. Murray said.

A Unicef official welcomed the findings. 'It shows we're making achievements that were unimaginable even 10 years ago,' said Mickey Chopra, Unicef's chief of health. He cited results in Niger and Malawi—where child deaths have been reduced sharply since 1990 despite a lack of economic growth—'as impressive.

While this is encouraging, McKay notes the 2.1 percent decline a year still does not meet the 4.4 percent annual decline needed to meet the United Nation's goal of reducing deaths in children under the age of five by two-thirds before 2015.

There is still more work to be done.

Read her entire article here.
You can find the report here.