By Tim Saunders on
Following last week’s Twitter Battle between Ashton Kutcher and CNN, other celebrities have promised donations to Malaria No More via the micro-blogging site.
Within hours of Kutcher becoming the first person to gain 1 million followers on Twitter, CNN matched his donation of 10,000 mosquito nets to the charity. Ryan Seacrest also made pleas to his fellow celebrity Twitter users to make donations – a challenge that was taken up by Oprah Winfrey as she joined the Twitter community with the announcement she would donate money for 20,000 nets.
Kutcher is also using Twitter to raise awareness of World Malaria Day on April 25.
“Let’s rally the troops on World Malaria Day,” he wrote in a series of Tweets earlier this month. “If we all rally we can make malaria a thing 4 history books (so) that we all say, ‘I can’t believe people use to die from that.’ Why focus on malaria? The cure exists. $10 saves a life I know we can do this.”
He also used his official MySpace blog to promote the cause: "On World Malaria Day, we plan to rally the Twitter community to Tweet in support of Malaria prevention and treatment, by asking our followers to go to the Malaria No More Website to learn about how to help end malaria deaths in Africa.
“Supporting World Malaria Day on Twitter is designed to be very simple. Our goal is to secure participation from the Twitter community, to Tweet the following message on Saturday, April 25, 2009: ‘Every 30 seconds a child dies from Malaria. Nets save lives. Support World Malaria Day’.
“By way of background, Malaria No More is determined to end malaria deaths in Africa. Malaria No More uses breakthrough communications, global advocacy and smart investments to advance the goals of providing universal access to malaria interventions by the end of 2010 and ending deaths by 2015. Every 30 seconds – the time it takes to send and receive a Tweet – a child dies from malaria, but a simple mosquito net can save lives.
“Please join us on April 25th in raising awareness of malaria prevention by Tweeting on Twitter in support of World Malaria Day.”
(On a related note, you can follow Look to the Stars on Twitter too!)
Copyright © 2009 Look to the Stars
