Press Releases

March 2008

Budding artists in for a chance of winning £2,000 for their school

Explorer and children’s television presenter, Steve Backshall, is calling on children around the UK to help raise awareness of a deadly tropical disease and win £2,000 for their school.

Steve has joined forces with the Malaria Awareness Campaign to help educate local school children about the disease and is inviting them to design an information-packed safety sticker for Malaria Awareness Week (12-18 May). The winning design will become this year’s official campaign logo and the stickers will be sent to hundreds of GP surgeries around the country.

Having suffered from malaria himself, Steve is keen to raise awareness of this deadly disease amongst the whole family: ‘Every year, around 2,000 British travelers return home with malaria so it’s never been more important that travel health education begins at a young age’, said Steve.

'People tend to think that malaria is a disease that only affects people in the developing world, however, the dramatic increase in holidays to long haul destinations means that malaria has become an issue for British people', he added.

Campaign information letters are being sent to schools throughout the UK to encourage them to participate; however, interested school children and teachers are also invited to visit www.malariahotspots.co.uk or pick up a copy of the April issue of National Geographic Kids (available 12th March) to get involved. No purchase is necessary and anyone between the ages of 6 and 13 can submit an entry – even if their class isn’t participating.

The deadline for entering is 18 April 2008. Eleven regional finalists will then be selected and their designs uploaded to www.malariahotspots.co.uk where a public online vote will determine the overall winner. Voting will take place from 21st to 30th April and the winner will be announced on www.malariahotspots.co.uk and on the National Geographic Kids website kids.geographic.com on 7th May.

To celebrate their success, all 11 finalists will each win a customised trophy and £50 worth of book vouchers. The winning design will become the official logo for the 2008 Malaria Awareness Campaign and will be made into thousands of stickers, which will be distributed to GP surgeries throughout the country. The winning entrant’s school will also receive a £2,000 grant from campaign sponsors, GlaxoSmithKline Travel Health.

Notes to editors:

• Steve Backshall is a British naturist, writer and television presenter, notably on CBBC’s The Really Wild Show, National Geographic’s EarthPulse and the Discovery/BBC Expedition series. He is also an author with Rough Guides. Steve contracted malaria while travelling in the Southeast Asian island of Borneo.
• Additional information including case studies and fact boxes are available if you are interested in running a malaria awareness feature.
• The Malaria Awareness Campaign is sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline Travel Health and supported by a leading panel of healthcare professionals, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA). The campaign aims to educate UK travellers about the risk of malaria and encourages them to seek expert medical advice before their journey.

> Back to Press Releases