Looking forward

Eight months ago, Katie and I moved to Portland, Oregon. We had just spent three weeks in Yirimadjo, Mali, where we had the privilege of learning from the doctors and community health care workers of Project Muso who work day and night to fight malaria. One day after training during the trip, we returned to our house in Mali to see a baptism ceremony taking place. The sleeping newborn baby was wrapped in a white gown, cradled in the arms of her proud mother. Every mother deserves to see her baby grow up healthy and free. And yet in Mali, one out of every five children will die before their fifth birthday. Amidst the dancing and clapping, celebrating the miracle of new life, I was hit by the urgency of making this world safe and free from malaria.

The task of eradicating malaria is daunting in complexity and scale. With an integrated, community-driven approach that tackles poverty at its roots, Project Muso offers a model of malaria eradication that I found absolutely inspiring. When we moved to Portland, Katie and I were eager to share the hopeful stories of Project Muso. With the help of Micah Challenge US, our host organization, we began searching for ways to mobilize young people of diverse faith around the issue of malaria. Our group, FaithsAct Portland, was formed to connect local action to the global change.

Over the course of eight months, FaithsAct Portland organized a number of “Interfaith in Action” dialogues and five themed service projects. The themes connected local issues of sanitation, women’s empowerment, education, health care, and community to the global issues that contribute to the global issue of malaria. We sought to raise awareness and funds through organized diffusion, a practice we learned from Project Muso. Through organized diffusion, each student becomes a teacher and life-saving knowledge can spread through the community.

FaithsAct Portland took organized diffusion to heart. As we received checks from people we had never met and watched the small amounts of change we collected add up to hundreds of dollars, we realized that the stories of Project Muso’s work had spread. What struck me most about this group was the dedication each individual had to support women in Mali whom they had never met fighting a disease that does not exist in our country. To me, this is faith. Faith that our struggles and triumphs are inseparably interconnected on a global scale. Faith that our choices and actions are important.  Faith that, little by little, change is possible.

The group’s most exciting achievement of the year was organizing Notes for Nets, Portland’s first annual World Malaria Day benefit concert. Put together by young people, sponsored by 30 local businesses and headlining local artist David Bazan, the concert was hugely successful and raised over $3,500 for Project Muso. Together with a sleep out to end malaria, Portland demonstrated its leadership in thinking globally through local collaboration.

I have been truly inspired by the relationships we have made this year. We are especially thankful for the support of the Micah Challenge US, PSU’s Spiritual Life Center, Interfaith Council of Greater Portland, Breathing Together, Multnomah Friends, PSU’s Jewish Student Union and the number of outstanding young people whom we had the privilege of volunteering alongside.

A team of dedicated young people have already started organizing Notes for Nets 2011 and another sleep out to end malaria for the second annual observance of World Malaria Day. Matthew Haussler, a talented musician and humanist, has volunteered to be the coordinator for Notes for Nets. Please continue to visit this website for updates on World Malaria Day 2011!

-Erin Toolis

Faiths Act Fellow