Speedo donates 35 000 items of swimwear to combat Malaria

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Parent Category: News and Stories

Posted in: Fashion n Modelling on Thursday, 15 April 2010 00:00

Published on Monday, 30 November -0001 00:00

Written by Models n Trends

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Speedo, the world’s leading swimwear brand, has pledged its support to World Swim Against Malaria, taking place on 25th June 2010, by donating 35,000 items of swimwear to participants.

Planet Sports, India’s leading sports lifestyle retailer, has an exclusive marketing tie-up with Speedo. Planet Sports has lined up lot of in-store promotion and ground activations to promote the “World Swim Against Malaria” program.

Speedo International’s President, David Robinson said: “As the world’s leading swimwear brand, we feel that it is only right to offer our full support to AMF in this most worthy of endeavours to reach the target of one million swimmers.” The event, organised by Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), sees participants from all over the world taking to the water to raise awareness of malaria, one of the world’s biggest killers.

First held in 2005 with 250,000 swimmers taking part, this year’s World Swim Against Malaria is aiming to attract a phenomenal one million participants.

Speedo’s involvement since 2005 has raised a total of more than $2 million, which has provided almost half a million nets, protecting almost 1 million people from malaria. Speedo staff, family and friends are delighted to have raised a whopping £93,943 in support of the cause, protecting 55,816 children against malaria.

With Speedo swimmers having so far covered a distance of 13,059 kilometres, Speedo is aiming, this year, to recruit enough swimmers to break the barrier of 40,074 kilometres – the same distance as a swim across the world.

To help achieve this aim, Speedo has introduced an innovative donation system that allows sponsors to claim free swimwear items depending on the amount of money they donate. From Thursday April 15th, each donation of $5USD at www.worldswimagainstmalaria.com/speedo entitles the sponsor to one item from the range of swimwear that includes pieces for male and female, juniors and adults (up to a maximum of four pieces), with only postage and packaging payable.

Although curable, Malaria remains one of the world’s deadliest diseases, killing up to three million people each year. 90% of these cases are in Africa, with 70% of victims children under five years old. That’s the equivalent of one child dying every 30 seconds - or seven jumbo jets filled with children dying every day.

In order to combat the disease, AMF uses 100% of proceeds from the World Swim Against Malaria to purchase bed nets which provide a cheap and highly effective protection against the spread of Malaria.
To find out more information about World Swim Against Malaria and how to get involved visit the website: http://www.worldswimagainstmalaria.com/default.aspx.