Jean Claude Rakotomalala, head of the Malagasy NGO Action Santé Organisations Secours Interview in English Windows Media | MP3

My name is Jean Claude Rakotomalala, I am the executive secretary for the ASOS organization.

In Madagascar, most people living in the countryside don't have access to the media. There is no radio or TV. Most newspapers are printed in the capital city and it takes days for them to get to remote villages. That's why it's a good solution to use puppets to raise awareness about malaria. People watch the show, so even if they are illiterate, they can understand the stories.

The puppeteers are locals. They are people we find in the villages, we recruit them and give them training. So they are communicating messages in the local dialects. We take the puppet show around the villages.
The puppeteers start to make the puppets dance and do a little sketch. That's to attract people to come to approach the stage and to get their attention. Then, the puppeteers do a little performance with messages to raise awareness on malaria issues. One story talks about a family where the child catches malaria, then the child's parents are advised to take the child to hospital. When they get there, the doctor treating the child gives advice like: "You should use an insecticide treated mosquito net." After using the treated net, the audience sees that the family sleeps really well and the child doesn’t get malaria any more.

Another story is about a family, with a small child. They do sleep under a mosquito net, but it’s not treated with insecticide. When they sleep under the net, no one gets much sleep, because there are mosquitoes which get in and disturb their sleep. Finally someone gives them advice "ah you should get your mosquito net treated and then you can sleep soundly. It also kills the mosquitoes and protects you against malaria."
There is a net treatment campaign in all the villages. Before doing any net treatment, we do the puppet shows first, which inspire people to bring their nets to get them treated, as they see all the advantages when conventional nets are treated with insecticides. So, we saw the impact straight away of the awareness campaign.

Personally, I've visited a lot of these campaigns. In the beginning, there were only around ten people who brought their mosquito nets forward for re-impregnation even though we had been informing people by putting up posters.

After the puppet show, around 50 people came forward with their mosquito nets.