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Local teacher fights poverty and disease in Africa with the Walk/Run Against Malaria Date published: 6/2/2006 By MELISSA NIX By MELISSA NIX Eleven years after being helped out of poverty, Darius Coulibaly hasn't stopped thinking about how to help others. Coulibaly, a special education teacher at Chancellor High School, founded his own nonprofit organization, Empowering the Poor, a year ago. For Coulibaly, everything is connected. "I grew up poor," the Ivory Coast native said. "At times we had one or two meals a day--not always three." Tomorrow, he hopes local residents and businesses will turn out en masse for his Race/Walk Against Malaria. The Loriella Park event will raise funds to fight the disease in sub-Saharan Africa. "Every 30 seconds, a child dies from malaria in Africa. Three thousand children are dying each and every day," Coulibaly writes on the Empowering the Poor Web site. "We are blessed to live in a country where malaria has been eradicated centuries ago, and healthcare resources are readily available." Coulibaly looks forward to tomorrow's race and encourages businesses to participate. While he's grateful for individual participation, businesses often have more leverage, he explained in a phone interview Tuesday. His goal is to raise $5,000 to help Thon, a small village of 1,000 people in the Ivory Coast. The people of Thon are subsistence farmers who cannot afford resources to fight malaria. According to the World Health Organization, malaria is an infection caused by a parasite. It is carried from person to person by mosquitoes. It kills more than 1 million people--most of them young children living in Africa--each year. In July, with the money raised from the race, Coulibaly and a volunteer team will bring treated bed nets and doses of ACT, an antimalarial drug, to Thon. Bed nets cost $5. "The villagers live on under $1 a day--some people less than that. They cannot afford it," Coulibaly said. He and his team will provide the first set of bed nets for free. However, Coulibaly said he doesn't believe in giving things away for free continuously. It's better to empower the poor, women especially. Women who attend 80 percent of an Empowering the Poor program of literacy and health-care classes will be eligible for a microfinance loan, he said.
Date published: 6/2/2006
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