
At the Millennium Promise Partners' Meeting in New York in September 2010, Sumitomo Chemical announced it would make a new donation of Olyset® Nets to every Millennium Village in Africa in 2010 - 2011 -- a total of 400,000 nets, worth more than 2 million dollars.
Sumitomo Chemical’s engagement with the Millennium Villages began in 2005, when it donated over 330,000 Olyset Nets to the Millennium Villages resulting in significant declines in the burden of malaria in the Millennium Villages. The new nets will be distributed as replacements for existing nets and to households that have not received nets previously.
As part of the United Against Malaria Campaign, Sumitomo Chemical is proud to present the "Palufoot" PSAs, featuring over 20 African football champions from across the malaria-endemic continent. The “Palufoot” PSAs communicate the power of long-lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets. The PaluFoot spots are available in English, French, Portuguese, Swahili, Wolof and several local languages.
Sumitomo Chemical is also active in Africa-based malaria advocacy initia tives. In 2010, millions of African families will receive bed nets for the first time. In order for these interventions to work, people must be made aware of the benefits of sleeping under bed nets.
In 2005, Sumitomo Chemical donated over 330,000 Olyset® anti-malaria bed nets – worth around $2 million – to the Millennium Villages in sub-Saharan Africa, enabling at least half a million people to be protected from exposure to malaria. Millennium Villages are at the heart of Millennium Promise, a non-profit organization focused on the eradication of extreme poverty.
In May 2008, Sumitomo Chemical was proud to sponsor the Zambezi Expedition, a dramatic health project that highlighted the malaria epidemic in six African countries in the Zambezi River region. Starting at the source of the river and finishing in its delta, medical teams traveled more than 2,500 kilometres (1,550 miles) in inflatable boats through Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. By exposing the difficulties of delivering mosquito nets and medications to remote areas, the Zambezi Expedition demonstrated that only a coordinated cross-border action can force the disease to recoil and turn the lifeline of southern Africa into a "River of Life" for those threatened by malaria. Go to Zambezi Expedition Website.
In 2007, in partnership with Malaria No More, Sumitomo Chemical donated 110,000 long-lasting insecticide-treated Olyset nets to a bednet distribution campaign in Madagascar. Led by the Malagasy government, the campaign ensured that virtually every child aged six months to five years old received a bed net.
Read press release.
View slideshow.
In 2007, Sumitomo Chemical partnered with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership and the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria to help communicate the risks of malaria to Africans, along with the benefits of proper prevention. Internet versions of these Public Service Announcements are now posted in French, English, Yoruba, Fan and Ingala.
Read more and view videos
Sumitomo Chemical was the principal sponsor of the AFRICA LIVE concert, staged in Dakar, Senegal on 12-13 March 2005.
AFRICA LIVE: The Roll Back Malaria Concert, was a two-day music event featuring 20 top African artists including Baaba Maal, Salif Keita, Orchestra Baobab, Manu Dibango, Ali Farka Touré and Khaled as well as rising young African talents. The event reached an estimated 40,000 spectators and an additional audience of one billion worldwide via television, DVD, radio and CD, celebrated the continent's creative energy and brought a message of empowerment and hope for tackling malaria.