I contracted malaria last year while visiting Tanzania, Africa.  The pain was unbearable and the fear unimaginable. I was alone. The only people near me were strangers praying over my bed. Just when you think it can never happen to you, think again. It happened to me …and it nearly killed me.

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I felt the pain shoot up my spine, my muscles weaken, and my joints lock, and the fever seize my body.  Only 3 more hours to go on a small, cramped “dala dala”, a local bus in Tanzania, with strangers sitting on my lap and the summer heat blazing through the window. It was “Africa hot” yet I was freezing and shivering.  I was living the real Africa. I had severe malaria with only hours to live.

I got to the hospital delusional, weak and scared. Malaria can kill you within 24 hours and I was nearing that time. My fever heightened. I was cold but sweating, my chest was caving in, and my head was pounding. Malaria is the fastest attacking disease to reach your brain and put you in a coma.

I wanted my parents. I wanted my friends. But no one was there to comfort me through the pain. I just had to ride out the storm alone, in a room that felt like a prison cell, on a small cot covered in bloodstains. “Am I going to make it?” I asked the nurse who spoke very little English. “We need medicines. Soon it will will be here.” was her response.

My state was too severe for a pill. I needed to be treated intravenously, which was a battle in itself. It took multiple tries to inject me with the IV, and after what felt like hours, the first dose of Quinine finally started flowing through my veins.

The next three days were the longest, loneliest, and most fearful days of my life.

My experience with malaria changed my life forever. Malaria was a word I new little about, and now is a part of my every day vocabulary. I had no clue one mosquito bite could pass on such a deadly disease. I had no clue malaria kills more people than AIDS in Tanzania or that one bout kills a child every 30 seconds. I had no idea it was so prevalent and I certainly had no idea you could survive it.

It’s true, I got a dose of the “real Africa,” only difference, I could afford the price to get healthy. All my treatment totaled less than $10 dollars.  It was shocking to me that children die a painful death because they don’t have the money to get treated.  I had to do something…

I remember looking down at a bracelet on my wrist. I had purchased it right off the hand of a Maasai warrior in the Serengeti a week before.  It was blue and resembled the vast sky of the region, but more importantly, it was a symbol of the Maasai heritage, culture and existence.

This bracelet became a symbol of life.

And so, MALAIKAFORLIFE was born, an initiative that saves lives and empowers communities ONE bracelet at a time. Every bracelet purchased provides medication for a child to survive malaria and an income for the woman who made it.

To date, we have supplied 8 clinics and 3 hospitals with the lifesaving medication to save over 8,000 lives! Celebrities like Katharine McPhee, Renee Olstead, Molly Ringwald, Brit Morgan, Ali Landry, Kali Hawk, Max Ryan, Frankie Muniz, and more have worn our bracelets!

My goal is simple – to continue to save lives and empower communities every day until a larger and more powerful organization can step in and find a vaccine or an alternative method that is immediate, effective and sustainable.

I have learned that it doesn’t take much to change someone’s life. All they need is an Angel, Malaika in Swahili.

**I have left my job in broadcast. I said goodbye to the flashy lights and path to stardom to focus all of my efforts on making certain that those who are suffering can find a Malaika, someone who cares enough to give them a chance to survive the deadly yet treatable disease.