The people in Malawi face an abundance of health problems every day because of their lack of knowledge about how to prevent diseases and access to treatment. In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William’s mother is infected with malaria and almost dies. Malaria is the third leading cause of death in Malawi after HIV/AIDS and lower respiratory infections. However, health organizations and the Malawian government have helped control the spread of Malaria.
Malaria is a serious and sometimes fatal disease caused by a parasite that commonly infects a certain type of mosquito which feeds on humans. People who get malaria are typically very sick with high fevers, shaking chills, and flu-like illness.. In 2015 an estimated 212 million cases of malaria occurred worldwide and 429,000 people died, mostly children in the African Region. Although malaria can be a deadly disease, illness and death from malaria can usually be prevented. In Malawi, malaria is very common because
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First of all, an increase in the use of insecticide-treated bed nets has reduced malaria. Approximately 60% of children under age five and 55% of pregnant women now sleep under mosquito nets, up from only 9 per cent in 2001. Nearly 3 million nets were retreated with insecticide in 2005. In addition, treatments for malaria are becoming more accessible. The Malawi Ministry of Health’s National Malaria Control Program has been able to scale up the distribution of artemisinin-based combination therapies and intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women. Because of all the prevention efforts and treatments, the incidence of Malaria has decreased over time. For example, Malaria incidence in 2015 was 386 per 1000 population representing a 20% reduction from 484 per 1000 in 2010. Also, the number of deaths due to Malaria has lessened from 5.6% to 3.4% in 2004 and 2009. Eventually, malaria will no longer one of the biggest killers in
In William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealers’ book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind the boy who harnessed the wind deals with teenager William Kamkwamba building a windmill in his backyard to produce light for his family’s home and to prevent future famines from ruining their crop. The famines in the book were a huge part of the book and a main drive for Kamkwamba while building the windmill. He described the horrors of famine on page 135 of his book using literary merit to explain how desperate the people most affected by the famine where and how that changed them. This page explained how the economy of Malawi was caving in on itself while the people of Malawi started changing. Thanks to the new change in power that had once helped farmers harvest
Williams short stories told in The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind contribute to the larger narrative by showing his past experiences and upbringing which helps show why, and how, he was able to build a windmill. One of the stories he tells us is about is how at the age of 13, he discovered the radio, and along with Geoffrey taught himself to fix people’s radios. Even early on, he was into science and very resourceful. He taught himself to fix a radio, which almost no-one else in the village could do and this experience was a building block he would use later to build his windmill. Another example from The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind are the stories he tells about his hunting and the traps they would use to kill birds.
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is a book written by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer in 2015. This non-fiction narrative details the journey that Kamkwamba took to create a wind turbine from scrapped materials and supply power to his small village in Malawi. He accomplished this feat in 2001 using a book entitled Using Energy to learn about wind turbines. Because of his ingenuity, he was invited to host a TED talk in 2007 and was accepted into Dartmouth University where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in environmental studies in 2014. Mealer, co-author of The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, helped Kamkwamba turn his story into a book, writing it from Kamkwamba’s perspective.
In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, the authors William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer use allusions to make the story more interesting. For example, one allusion that they mention is, “My father talked about the early days of MBC and hearing Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers from America and the wonderful sounds of Robert Fumulani” (68). Dolly Parton is a singer-songwriter, actress, author, businesswoman and humanitarian. Dolly Parton is best known for her work in country music (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolly_Parton). Kenny Rogers is an American singer who has won many awards and has a lot of fans all over the world (http://www.kennyrogers.com/#bio). William’s father is recalling his memories from when he was younger, and the famous musicians
The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, is an inspirational novel which moves the reader to make a change in the world. William grew up in Malawi, Africa where magic ruled and modern science was a total mystery, along with his mother, father, and sisters. They family grew maize on their farm and always had enough to sell and to eat throughout the winter, until one dreadful season. The country fell into a drought which lead to a famine, resulting in a myriad of deaths, some personal to William. William was then forced to drop out of school, which he adored, because his family could not afford it. Throughout all of this darkness, there was light. There was still a dream. William aspired to be educated, and when he
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind was a very inspiring story. A boy that came from such beginnings would have never been expected to do what William Kamkwamba did, especially in a third world country. Although some of the book wandered off into what seemed like random information, it all was Kamkwamba’s life and described what he did in his childhood and up. Also, this random information gave detail to what his surroundings were like. For example, the gumball story in the beginning showed how much his village believed in magic, making it that much more spectacular of him to do something like create a renewable energy source in a place that knew more about magic and less about science. The book motivated me to do something great, even though I
Government and accreditation authorities have also incorporated cultural competence in strategic planning of health services in Australia (Victorian Department of Health 2009, 2011a, 2011b)
William was able to accomplish many things due to his hard work. William’s hard work did not just affect himself, but his whole village. Due to his hard work, he was able to provide his village with electricity. William was forced to drop out of secondary school due to his parents not having the money to pay the student fees during the drought. He began studying at the library and one day a book about windmill’s caught his eye. William realized that he could try and build a windmill for his house to get electricity. He had set his mind to building a windmill. William worked hard everyday trying to collect materials from the scrapyard and improvising with the things he already had. Most people didn’t help William because they didn’t know who he was and how important his windmill would be. After he built it everyone loved him and changed their views about him. When William had finally had everything he needed his hard work was going to pay off. Even after William had made electricity his hard work just kept paying off. In the novel “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind”, an official from the Malawi Teacher Training Activity told Williams dad “You may not realize, but your son has done an amazing thing, and this is only the beginning” (Kamkwamba 251). This clearly shows that Williams hard work was also extraordinary work. Not only was it being recognized by his village, but people around the continent of Africa, and eventually people from all around the world. This is also
Aim - To explore the impacts Malaria has on citizens of developing countries which are effect by the disease.
Malaria is a disease that affects nearly 600 million people and causes more than a million deaths a year, the most coming from children under five. This disease is regularly found in more than 100 countries around the world and affects 40% of the world’s population. It is most commonly transmitted by an infected Anopheles mosquito. The most deadly form of malaria is known as Plasmodium falciparum because almost all deaths from malaria are caused by this specific one. Some of the symptoms that are affiliated with this strand of malaria are the destruction of red blood cells along with complications with the kidneys, lungs, and brain. In more serious cases, it can cause permanent neurological effects and even death. As the Nobel Assembly said at the announcement of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, “Diseases caused by parasites have plagued humankind for a millennium and constitute a major global health problem. In particular, parasitic diseases affect the world’s poorest populations and represent a huge barrier to improving human health and wellbeing”. Youyou Tu, one of the winners of the prize, discovered Artemisinin, “a drug that has significantly reduced the mortality rates for patients suffering from malaria by killing the malaria parasites an early stage of their development.”
There have been many attempts at preventing malaria, none of which have been very successful. These have usually involved protecting human beings from mosquitoes, the dreaded carriers
So then when they do get malaria they also don’t have the money for proper treatment. Then there is also the problem of no one wanting to donate to help find a cure to the disease.
Malaria has been in existence for thousands of years. Many historical records show that it has affected human civilization greatly by plaguing and causing mass death. The earliest record can be traced back to 2700 BC in China (Cox, 2002). It has been long associated with swamps and insects for hundreds of years but often believed to be the air from swamps causing the plague. The term malaria rooted from two Italian words ‘mala’ and ‘aria’ which literally means bad air. Humanity did not know the true nature of the long thought disease until 1894 when a Scottish physician, Sir Ronald Ross, discovered that it was actually the parasite in mosquito that is causing the malaria.
Malaria (also called biduoterian fever, blackwater fever, falciparum malaria, plasmodium, Quartan malaria, and tertian malaria) is one of the most infectious and most common diseases in the world. This serious, sometimes-fatal disease is caused by a parasite that is carried by a certain species of mosquito called the Anopheles. It claims more lives every year than any other transmissible disease except tuberculosis. Every year, five hundred million adults and children (around nine percent of the world’s population) contract the disease and of these, one hundred million people die. Children are more susceptible to the disease than adults, and in Africa, where ninety percent of the world’s cases occur and where eighty percent of the cases
Kamkwamba was born in a family of relative poverty and relied primarily on farming to survive. According to his biography, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, his father had been a rough fighting man who changed after discovering the Christian God. A crippling famine forced Kamkwamba to drop out of school, and he was not able to return to school because his family was unable to afford the tuition fees. In a desperate attempt to retain his education, Kamkwamba began to frequent the library. It was at the local library where Kamkwamba discovered his true love for electronics. Before, he had once set up a small business repairing his village's radios, but his work with the radios had been cheap.