Sustainable Integrated Malaria Management by Villagers in Collaboration with a Transformed Classroom Using the Holistic Process: Sanambele, Mali, and Montana State University, U.S.A.

Women’s perceptions of health, quality of life, and malaria management in Kakamega County, Western Province, Kenya

“…This study site was selected first because it is representative of rural communities where over 75 % of Kenyans reside (UNICEF 2013). Second, the rural settlement is relatively similar to the community of Mali where, using the holistic process, villagers initiated villagebased malaria management that led to the local elimination of cerebral malaria (Dunkel et al 2013). And third, a long history of trust and respect built up between residents and MSU Engineers Without Borders (EWB) created a platform for our interaction with this locale and the opportunity for one of the authors (Hansen) to live with a local family during field research.…”

“…Evidence and past experience suggest that where significant decreases in funding for malaria interventions have occurred, eradication methods ultimately wane as well, with the result being a ''Sisyphean challenge'' of never fully seeing the incidence of malaria curtailed in these particular places (Smith et al 2011). Clearly, the uncertainties surrounding funding makes it fully evident that populations at risk need access to locally-informed sustainable tools and information, including bio-cycle storytelling 2 to control and reduce the levels of malaria incidence (Dunkel et al 2013).…”

“…2 Bio-cycle storytelling is a term coined by Dunkel et al (2013) to use storytelling, which is part of the oral tradition of Africans, to convey complex biological, ecological or evolutionary shifts. In this research site, bio-cycle storytelling was aimed at teaching the evolutionary shifts in mosquito behavior.…”

“…Thus, a self-perpetuating horizontal diffusion of malaria-related knowledge resulted. This informal story telling process was based on methods used in remote villages in southern Mali where cerebral malaria was considered the main impediment to villagers attaining their desired quality of life (Dunkel et al 2013). This work in Mali suggests that when information is by the community and for the community, actions supporting malaria management and eradication will be adjusted through community creativity to the local geography, environmental concerns, and seasonality.…”

“…Studies have shown how attention to individual agency and collective action can improve health conditions and disease patterns even in the face of macro-level economic and socio-political structures and environmental factors that can constrain local actions (Bisung et al 2015;Dunkel et al 2013). One critical place for intervention we see is to investigate understandings and perceptions of malaria within the broader context of geographical situations, socioeconomic processes, and environmental changes that shape inequalities of exposure and survivorship in one of Sub-Saharan Africa's most malaria-prone areas.…”