Gloria hasn’t missed a day at school since making one simple change to her routine at home. Last year, in her grandmother’s hut on the shores of Lake Victoria, Kenya, the 12-year-old started sleeping under a mosquito net.

“The health of Gloria and of the other students has improved,” says head teacher Samwel Okomo, head teacher of Sargy Education Centre. “And because she is attending school regularly, her performance has improved, too.”

Balazs Csiszer, Blythswood’s head of international partnerships, was at Sargy when 300 nets funded by Blythswood’s gift catalogue were handed out in February 2024. “Mosquito nets are such a cost-effective form of aid,” he says. “The cost of treating one bout of malaria can be as much as the cost of a net. And one person may be sick with malaria several times a year.”

£11 makes a mosquito net one of the cheaper items in Blythswood’s gift catalogue. For Gloria who is an orphan and her 80-year-old grandmother who gathers sticks to sell as firewood it would be a fortune. They could never afford to buy a mosquito net for themselves.