Dwayne De Rosario: Player of the Week, Man of the Hour

Dwayne De Rosario is doing the Lord's work this week, and not simply because he was playing against Seattle on Sunday and Montreal on Wednesday. He took the time to answer a couple of questions about malaria. (Long story short – he's against it.)
________________

Me: I saw on the Nothing But Nets site that over three million nets have been bought so far?

DDR: Yes, over three years.

Me: According to Wikipedia, malaria has been around for 50,000 years. United Against Malaria has set a goal of eradicating the disease by 2015. How has that been possible?

DDR: It's come from having people stand up and be accountable – organizations, governments, celebrities, athletes, coming together and spreading awareness. A lot of people are not aware that every 30 seconds, a child dies from malaria. A lot of people are not aware that malaria is preventable, that it's curable. I remember in 2007, when Diego Gutierrez told me about this, I had no idea. And it made me want to help do something about it. So that's what word of mouth has done, it's gotten to the point where it's become a recognized global concern, and thanks to those efforts and raising awareness, we are on a pace to wipe out malaria by 2015.

Me: I also wanted to ask about De Ro Entertainment really quickly. It's like this combination of music, soccer, and charitable work.

DDR: It started when me, my brother, and my friend were looking for a way to put all of our passions together. We're able to use this to raise awareness. When you hear about the statistics – malaria kills more than a million people a year, and most of those are children. So people hear something like that, and they look at their own families, and the want to help end malaria. So we're able to go into the community, go into schools, and raise awareness.

Me: Of course, even though World Malaria Day was the 24th, they can still donate at Nothing But Nets?

DDR: Yes.

Me: And 100% of the donations go to nets.

DDR: Right. And we will not stop until we end malaria.
________________

As it happened, I probably didn't do much except recapitulate Steven Streff's article in Goal.com earlier in the week. Still, a net isn't just for World Malaria Day – it's for life. Thank you, I made that up all by myself.

And I was even forwarded a video featuring the other player who crushed my dreams in MLS Cup 2001:

Not the captain of the US national team, just a member.