DVM leads Vets for Nets collection for African refugees

Columbia, Mo.

- While doing research on the Liberian orphanage where she adopted her two sons, veterinarian Carolyn Henry came across a photograph she couldn't easily ignore.

The 12-year-old boy with long, deep scars across his forehead bore a striking resemblance to her 8- and 12-year-old sons.

Nathaniel, like many other people in the region, had been injured during the civil wars ravaging several African countries. When he was 6 months old, as his mother tried to take him out of Liberia, a soldier repeatedly struck the infant in the head with a machete.

While Henry realized she couldn't do anything about Nathaniel's early injuries, she knew she could do something to help prevent future injury to him and other refugees living in a transit center in Conakry, Guinea.

Through her contact with Nathaniel and those who run the center, she learned that the 43 people there were in desperate need of malaria nets. Malaria kills an estimated 1 million people a year, affecting mostly young children in sub-Sahara Africa.

"The transit center used to be a refugee camp," Henry explains. "When the U.N. pulled out, the people there didn't have anywhere to go. Frankly, some of them are too scared to go back to their own countries. They are stuck in no-man's land there. They don't get support from anywhere and there are no jobs for them, so a malaria net is a luxury."

With the rainy season about to begin, Henry e-mailed her colleagues at the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, where she is associate professor and director of the Scott Endowed Program in Veterinary Oncology. Within 45 minutes, she raised half of money needed for the $10 nets she wanted to purchase and put together the full amount in two days.

She also got the inspiration to do more.

"This is something where you can actually see how your donation is making a difference in the lives of people," says Henry. "It's great to be able to see them with nets in hand."

Pictures of the transit center refugees, who are from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast, along with comments from veterinarians across the country who learned about her efforts, prompted Henry to take the campaign "Vets for Nets" national.

So far, her online efforts have netted $475. The Against Malaria Foundation, which distributes the nets, has challenged her to collect enough money to buy 5,000 of them.

"It's hard not to get involved," she says. "Having adopted two boys from there, it's a daily reminder of how much we have here and how much we have to appreciate."

For more information or to donate, visit www.AgainstMalaria.com/Vets4Nets.