When Adriana Lanting was touring the House of Friendship at the 2017 Rotary Zone Institute in Reno, Nevada, she struck up a conversation with a representative from World Vision. That chance meeting led to some discussions about World Vision partnering with Rotary club projects.
A bit later, she met Steve Crane, a polio survivor and longtime member of Seattle Rotary. He introduced her to members of Seattle Rotary that were in the Rotary Malaria Project. He also set up a meeting with Philip Welkoff at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who was in charge of their Malaria efforts.
After running the Rotary Large Club Conference in Long Beach where she asked Steve and Philip to be speakers, she was asked to take the position of Board Chair of the Malaria project starting in June of 2021.
Her vision was to expand the partnerships to get a broader base of continuing support for the Malaria effort. Discussions on how best to accomplish that led to re-branding the organization into Malaria Partners International and establishing partnerships with other organizations beyond Rotary to train community health workers who would not only distribute mosquito nets, but also check and treat other common maladies.
Through their grants and projects in Zambia, Uganda and others, with MPI leadership and the help of Rotarians, they have trained and equipped more than 5,000 Community Health Workers that will raise the bar in health care to prevent, test and treat malaria for more than 2,500,000 people.
They have reached out to 1.4 million Rotarians with their Eradication of Malaria message through the most recent article in the Rotary Magazine that featured Jennifer Jones’ Zambia visit to see their work firsthand with Partners for Malaria Free Zambia and through presentations at local Rotary clubs, District Conferences, Zone Conferences, International Assembly and the grandaddy of them all – the RI International Conference in Houston.
In Houston Adriana had one-on-one conversations with the Rotary Foundation Trustees and Rotary International Directors. Rotary President Jennifer Jones, Past Rotary President Ravi Ravindran, Lady Ros of the Global Fund and Abigail Pratt of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spoke at the Malaria reception to share their enthusiasm for taking on Malaria prevention.
The breakout session was ‘standing room only’ with Rotarians attending to learn about the fight to end malaria.
President Jones followed the convention with a trip to Seattle to meet with leaders of the Gates Foundation, World Vision and MPI to talk about next steps to end malaria.
Malaria Partners International emphasizes the importance of partnership. Joining the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, World Vision and Pilgrim Africa this year they have established working relationships with PATH, PMI, the UN Foundation, ALMA, RAM-Global, and multiple governments, and Ministries of Health.
With increasing scope comes larger challenges. This coming year they'll be looking to increase grant funding from large foundations and new partnerships. They'll also be participating at the RI Convention in Melbourne and the International Malaria Congress.
All due to making lasting friendships through Rotary.