Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has launched an international search for 30 religious youth to embark on a 10-month journey of interfaith service for the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals.
"As changemakers for current and future generations, young people have the opportunity to establish a new vision of inter-religious interaction that places protecting the welfare of the world's poorest at its centre," Blair stated in an official announcement.
The "Faiths Act Fellows", as the 30 "inter-religious ambassadors" aged 18 to 25 will be called, will be brought together by the Faiths Act Fellowship to first go through a two-month intensive initiative that includes fieldwork with primary healthcare partners fighting deaths from malaria in Africa.
For the last eight months, the youths will return to their home countries to mobilise young people of faith to raise awareness and resources to promote the Millennium Development Goals, with a particular focus on fighting deaths from malaria.
"Halting and reversing the spread of deaths from malaria is one of today's most urgent moral challenges," Blair stated.
"And," he added, "progress in the fight against malaria will speed our achievement of six of the eight Millennium Development Goals," which include halving extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as Aids, and developing a global partnership for development.
According to statistics, 500 million people contract the disease each year and one million die - the vast majority of whom are in Africa and under five years old.
Blair stressed on Thursday during a panel discussion, however, that malaria is preventable.
