Action Against Hunger
Worldwide, more than a billion people suffer from hunger, and some five million children die every year from causes related to malnutrition. Action Against Hunger, an international humanitarian organization, works to save lives through the treatment and prevention of malnutrition while ensuring access to safe water and sustainable solutions to hunger. With 30 years of expertise in emergency situations of conflict, natural disaster, and chronic food insecurity, Action Against Hunger runs life-saving programs in some 40 countries, benefiting five million people each year. And by developing strategies in concert with local populations, Action Against Hunger works to ensure that communities regain self-sufficiency for the long term.
In Kenya, for example, Action Against Hunger responded rapidly to the post-election violence by opening a new base in the provincial capital of Nakuru, where more than 30,000 people sought shelter in camps or with relatives. Action Against Hunger secured clean water, provided sanitation facilities, and distributed essential non-food items such as soap, blankets, and clothing. Once the situation stabilized, Action Against Hunger’s food security experts developed an innovative program to help the displaced regain self-sufficiency as rapidly as possible. Partnering with a local bank, Action Against Hunger provided small cash grants to revive livelihoods or rebuild small businesses destroyed during the conflict.
Action Against Hunger’s commitment to treating and preventing malnutrition in vulnerable populations compels the organization to work in some of the most remote parts of the world and in places served by few other humanitarian groups. In the wake of the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia in 2004, for example, Action Against Hunger targeted vulnerable populations in the isolated rural areas to the West of Aceh, Indonesia, where little other international support was available.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, where violence still rages and families have been forced to eke out a meager living on their land after the collapse of the mining industry, Action Against Hunger is treating thousands of children with severe acute malnutrition and providing families with lasting solutions to hunger, including seeds and tools, training in agricultural techniques to improve productivity, and access to activities that will generate income well into the future.
At the community level, in countries all over the world, Action Against Hunger is training Village Health Teams to identify malnourished children and refer them for outpatient treatment, or if the cases are very severe, to local Stabilization Centers, which are integrated into pre-existing national health care systems. Action Against Hunger works with Ministries of Health to train and equip doctors and nurses to identify and treat children on the brink of starvation. In the Stabilization Centers and outpatient therapeutic programs Action Against Hunger operates around the world, 90 percent of children recover fully from acute malnutrition. But the organization also measures its success by the ability to transfer nutrition programs over to local authorities so that communities can continue to fight malnutrition well into the future.
In addition, Action Against Hunger’s research and advocacy department, Hunger Watch, supports the organization’s broader mission of raising awareness and engaging public opinion by compiling data and findings from Action Against Hunger’s extensive field programs in over 40 countries. These on-the-ground perspectives—gleaned directly from thorough field surveys, regional studies, and ongoing technical research—are used to improve understandings of global hunger and influence responses to humanitarian crises. Recent reports have examined the link between malnutrition and morbidity in Ethiopia and the impact of AIDS on hunger and malnutrition in Malawi and Zambia. If you are interested in learning more about Action Against Hunger, visit their website at www.actionagainsthunger.org or, to support their efforts, donate here. [Hyperlink doesn’t work: please replace with http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/donate]
