Crescent helps combat malaria
Crescent College Comprehensive SJ students and staff raised €1,500 in a Jesuit province-wide campaign to buy Mosquito nets for students in Ocer Campion, a Jesuit school in Northern Uganda. During the end of year assembly in the college, Fr. Jim Maher SJ was presented with the cheque which was raised during the ‘No Mossies in March’ campaign, which took place across the Jesuit Colleges. These nets are one of the key ways to stop the spread of malaria, a life-threatening disease transmitted by mosquito bite.
Ms Antoinette Ryan, Geography and English teacher, and Kriz Vekic had travelled to Ocer Campaign School in Uganda as part of the Colleges Formation Programme. They did research work on the campaign in Jesuit schools there. Along with other staff and students in Crescent, she came up with the idea of a fund and awareness-raising campaign in the college.
They designed and produced posters for the ‘No Mossies in March’ initiative which was launched at the assembly on Ash Wednesday of this year. They also put a large mosquito net over a bed they constructed which was on display during the Mass and remained up in the school over a number of weeks as a reminder of the campaign.
The end of year assembly took place during Ramadan, the time of fasting for the Muslim community. Muslim student Ola Obasa recited from the Koran and prayed for the Muslim students in the school who were fasting.