A report in the Kenyan newspaper the Daily Nation:
Mosquito net manufactures are teaming up with the provincial administration and village elders in several parts of Kenya in an effort to apprehend and prosecute people who use the products for purposes other than covering beds.
According to Dr Elizabeth Juma, who is the head of malaria control under the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, there has been evidence of people turning the nets into fishing gear especially in Nyanza Province. Now a different group has discovered another lucrative business venture, and are using the nets to make wedding dresses.
Perhaps net education might have a bigger payoff than prosecution. Net promoters seem to consistently underestimate the challenge of spreading the scientific knowledge about the risks of getting malaria from mosquito bites. Traditional views of disease persist. As the Nation article tersely concludes:
Apart from individuals converting the nets into business tools, there are other beliefs in the country which are setbacks in fighting malaria.
4 Comments
‘net education’ spot on! But perhaps if someone can use 2 nets to make a wedding dress, and make enough money to buy 10 nets, they have their 2 original nets back and now have 8 more to make 4 more dresses.
This just sounds like good entrepreneurship to me.
It’s just good entrepenourship. If they can make a wedding dress with 2 nets and go buy 10 more, they’ve got back their original 2 and can now make 4 more dresses with the ‘profits.’
Its for this reason that many net manufacturers do not make white or off-white nets. Not many people want to marry in hunter green.
wow, I had not idea there were things like this going on with Wedding Dresses.