Blackout Against Malaria - the Caring Face of Facebook

Social networking has reach that tradition media can only lust for. It also has a lateral kind of creative application that makes we want to sing and dance when I see some of the wonderful things that stream into my inbox.

The latest is a campaign - run through Facebook, called Blackout against Malaria. I was introduced to it though an invitation to an event - in New York. The group's name is One Million Faces against Malaria and this is Project Blackout.

The idea:

Join One Million Faces Against Malaria's Project Blackout, our attempt to make ALL Facebookers aware of the malaria emergency. Yes, close to three million people dying per year from mosquito bites is not a cause but an EMERGENCY. 90% of the three million are under the age of five! Our world leaders are not doing nearly enough, nearly urgently enough to fight it, so your voice and your black profile pic are needed more than you can ever imagine.

All of our action steps are pretty easy:

1) On September 23, today, post a black profile pic.

2) Get invites out to your friends (just hit the invite function on the group page http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4110666657 and check the boxes - won't take more than a minute).

There is more to this, so take a look and black out your pics to raise awareness - after all, we Africans know all about Malaria - don't we?