Humanitarian adventurer Kingsley Holgate is using adventure to combat malaria and improve and save lives throughout Africa. His adventures have seen him criss-crossing the continent by Land Rover in a series of expeditions, all the while helping those in need.
Holgate and his team, in a convoy of two Land Rover Discoverys and a Defender 130, known as the United Against Malaria “mothership”, are currently undertaking the Great African Rift Valley Expedition. One of its primary objectives is combating one of the biggest killers in the world: malaria.
As the world recently commemorated World Malaria Day on 25 April, Holgate’s team is well into its 12-month, nine-chapter odyssey to malaria-stricken countries throughout Africa. Globally, 3.3 billion people in 106 countries are at risk of malaria and 655 000 deaths are claimed by malaria each year according to the latest statistics - 90 percent of which are in Africa
While the statistics are dire, malaria is a treatable and preventable disease.
Simple tools such as treated mosquito nets, effective medicines and safe indoor spraying can save lives.
“I know what it’s like, I’ve had malaria more than 40 times,” explains Holgate. “It’s like a thud to the heart when you get to a village and a mother is screaming, not knowing what to do, her child dying from malaria - two days by dugout from the nearest clinic. And to think these lives can be saved by a simple mosquito net.”
Holgate’s convoy of Land Rovers will move from the northern point in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa through Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Malawi, to its most southern point near Gorongosa in Mozambique.
Holgate said: “In Africa, malaria deaths have been reduced by more than 30 percent, but still a child dies every minute of every day from the bloodsucking bite of the Anopheles mosquito.”
You can show your support for fighting malaria by purchasing a United Against Malaria bracelet from Cape Union Mart, Nandos or participating Exclusive Books stores.