PORT ANGELES — Tom and Rhonda Curry have put their combined health care administration expertise to work in a nonprofit to help fight malaria among the Maasai in Tanzania.
They will talk about their Maasailand Health Project, which delivered help to one village in December, during a presentation at the Necessities & Temptations gift shop in downtown Port Angeles tonight.
The Port Angeles couple will speak from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the business at 217 N. Laurel St.
Gift shop owner Edna Petersen offered to host the presentation to help the Currys raise their target goal of $10,000 to provide insecticide-treated mosquito nets, malaria medication and malaria tests kits to five more villages in the Olduvai region of Tanzania.
“We’re just going to tell our story,” Tom Curry said Thursday.
“And the story is how a small group of people were able to reach out across the world and make a difference.”
Tom Curry is a regional director of operations for Extendicare, a long-term care company based in Seattle, and is responsible for the Crestwood Convalescent Center in Port Angeles and Sequim Health and Rehabilitation.
Rhonda Curry is assistant administrator/strategic marketing and communications at Olympic Medical Center in Port Angeles.
They founded the nonprofit Maasailand Health Project in November after discovering the toll malaria is taking on six villages — called bomas — in the Oldubai region of Tanzania during a safari of the African Serengeti last March.
The two put their years of experience in health care delivery to work, “analyzing what was needed and what the barriers were to getting them served,” Tom Curry said.
“The government is extremely poor, and the world health organizations are hitting the populated areas — which makes sense.”
But in the approximately 200 square miles in which nearly 500 people live in six bomas, little was being done.
Some preventive measures are not costly. For example, $10 will buy an insecticide-treated net that will last for four years.
But, “this is an area that is not served by their government,” Tom Curry said.
The Currys’ nonprofit was formed in November.
In December — working with Oldubai Boma’s English teacher, Metwiy Sabor, and a non-government organization, Terrawatu — the nonprofit delivered 100 insecticide-treated mosquito nets, medication, test kits and a medical team to that village.
“So, success,” Tom Curry said.
In January, the nonprofit’s board of directors decided to extend its mission to help the remaining five villages in the Oldubai area.
The nonprofit plans to deliver more nets, medicine and expertise to those villages in April.
“We have about $4,500 we need to raise,” said Tom Curry, who feels the pressure of time.
“The malaria season is starting to ramp up,” he said.
Checks can be made out to Maasailand Health Project and mailed to 1105 Spring St., Suite 1210, Seattle.
To donate online or for more information, see www.mlhp.org/.
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Managing Editor/News Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3531 or leah.leach@peninsuladailynews.com.
