After traveling to Africa, Ben Cole '10 explains how his philosophy on life was forever changed.

“Wake up! You must get out! You must get out of the house!” It was 4 a.m. in Humjibre, Ghana, a small village in the estern region of the country. I had been in Humjibre for almost two weeks now with Cover Africa, a student group at Cornell which seeks to combat malaria and its intimate connection to poverty. We were working with a local NGO, the Ghana Health and Education Initiative (GHEI), to carry out Humjibre’s first ever malaria intervention. Abruptly awoken from a deep sleep, my heart was racing — was there a fire? A civil war? Would we be evacuated from the country? What was happening?

“Every 30 seconds a child dies from malaria,” read one of the many signs lining the path across the Arts Quad. A bed net, used to prevent mosquito bites, hung from a nearby tree. And a conspicuous white tent was erected close by.

All these were put up by Cover Africa for the group’s 28-hour sleep-out on the Arts Quad. The socially conscious sleepover, the fourth since its inception in Dec. 2006, aims to raise both funds for and awareness about the malaria epidemic in Africa.

“The sleep-out is symbolic because malaria spreads at night — when people are sleeping,” said Ojus Patil ’11, treasurer of Cover Africa.

Cornell plans to use a $1.7 million grant from The Alliance for a Green Revolution to provide support for the West African Center for Crop Improvement.