ACF International Network
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Action Against Hunger has developed its water and sanitation expertise over nearly three decades of field work, advancing a number of solutions for populations at risk from water insecurity.
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Central to the targeting of malnutrition, Action Against Hunger extends water and sanitation improvements to communities with little or no access to proper sources.
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Action Against Hunger's programs are sustainable because of our commitment to community participation—to build local capacity and harnesses a population's energy and resources.
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Though strategies may vary, our food security interventions all share a common goal: to fight hunger by preserving and strengthening livelihoods in a sustainable and contextual manner.
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Action Against Hunger’s innovative food security programs offer a broad range of solutions for generating income, boosting food production, and strengthening livelihoods.
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Our comprehensive approach to hunger involves extending water and sanitation services to communities faced with water scarcity, unsafe drinking water, and inadequate sanitation.
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Action Against Hunger occupies a unique place among international organizations: our expertise encompasses emergency relief, longer-term development, and the terrain in between.
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We have developed an effective method to treat acute malnutrition that includes field-tested protocols and nutritional products backed by an international scientific advisory committee.
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Action Against Hunger helps rehabilitate and restock public health infrastructure, fields mobile health clinics, and trains local medical personnel on preventative and diagnostic care.
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Our comprehensive programs address the linkages between disease and malnutrition by coordinating with local expertise and strengthening existing public health systems.
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Where We Work

Update Against Hunger - September 14, 2005
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Field Notes: 

Hurricane Katrina and ACF's Criteria for Intervening

Dear Action Against Hunger Team Member,

Everyone at Action Against Hunger extends condolences to the victims of Hurricane Katrina and to their families. We're all too familiar with pain of displacement and the recovery effort that lies ahead, and we're wholly sympathetic.

We've been asked why we aren't participating in the rescue. First, though the humanitarian response was slow to begin, it's now massive. Today, the difference we could make would be negligible compared with the impact our resources can have in impoverished countries with few routes to assistance. Also, we're dedicated to addressing and alleviating culturally embedded barriers to health and nutrition. Yes, Katrina walloped impoverished communities, but diverse mechanisms for improving the lives of their populations are in place. And finally, although we sometimes help communities whose needs are clearly temporary, various relief organizations have made assessments that suggest intervention by aid organizations with expertise in the developing world is needed less on the Gulf Coast than in numerous despairing communities elsewhere.

If the situation were to change, of course, we'd respond immediately.

Cathy Skoula
Executive Director,
Action Against Hunger (ACF) USA

New from US Headquarter: 

Film Screenings of "Heart of the Congo" Scheduled

In the past, Update Against Hunger has reported on the hour-long documentary, Heart of the Congo, an absorbing and unflinchingly honest profile of an Action Against Hunger project in D.R. Congo. Completed a year or so ago, the film is finally acquiring a schedule of screenings. If you haven't seen Heart of the Congo yet, check out the following venues and dates:

  • Wednesday, September 28: The Commonwealth Club, 595 Market Street, San Francisco. Reservations: www.commonwealthclub.org or call (415) 597 6705.
  • October 3 - 7: Arpa International Film Festival, at ArcLight Cinemas, Hollywood, CA. For screening dates and festival information: www.affma.org or call Elizabeth Tohikian at (818) 259 0791.
  • Wednesday, October 12 - United Nations Association Film Festival, 7:30 p.m., Delancey Screening Room, 600 Embarcadero, San Francisco. Tickets: www.unaff.org/2005.
  • Sunday, October 23 - United Nations Association Film Festival, 6:05 p.m., Cubberley Auditorium (School of Education), Stanford University, Palo Alto. Tickets: www.unaff.org/2005.
Also, the following public television stations have scheduled broadcasts of the film:

KOZK, Springfield, MO Sept. 20, 10 pm.; WTCI, Chattanooga TN, Sept. 21, 11 p.m.; KOZJ, Joplin, MO and Pittsburg KS, Sept. 20, 10 p.m.; WNED, Buffalo, NY, Sept. 22, 2 a.m.; KAWE, Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, Sept. 22, 9 p.m.; WHUT, Washington, DC, Sept. 29, 8 p.m.; WYBE, Philadelphia, PA, Oct. 28, 10 p.m.; KVCR, San Bernadino, CA, Nov. 24, 10 p.m.; and KQED, San Francisco, CA, Nov. 1, 11 p.m.

PBS affiliates in Norfolk, VA, San Mateo, CA, and Wichita, KS have announced that they too will air the film, but they haven't yet said when. If the above schedules don't work for you, Heart of the Congo's director, Tom Weidlinger, posts screening information at www.heartofthecongo.com/congo/event.html.

Keep checking. The film is terrific.

News from the field: 

The ACF Blog Experience Expands

Since early summer, our website has been posting blogs from ex-pats in the field. Every week or two, Obie Porteous, our food security program manager in Gulu, Uganda, files news and thoughts about his work. We also include a blog, begun with the best of intentions but abandoned (as many blogs are) by Katie Vosswinkel in Kampala, Uganda, where she's our financial administrator and human resources coordinator.

Now Kelly Delaney will become blogger No.3. She's heading to Mandera, Kenya, as a nurse/nutritionist. Kelly trained as a nurse at the University of Pennsylvania and spent the past two years on the woman's oncology floor at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City. She has also worked at a clinic in west Philadelphia where she found her dedication to helping poor populations. She also loves to travel. She has lived in Ireland and backpacked extensively through Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, Peru, and Puerto Rico. Mandera will be her debut assignment for Action Against Hunger. "It's something I've always wanted to do," she says. "I'm really excited by it."

Kelly arrived in Paris for training last week, and once she arrives in Mandera she promises to keep us posted about her expectations, surprises, and experiences in the field. Watch for her epistles at www.actionagainsthunger.org/news/blogs.html.

Person Profile: 

Profile - JANE HARRIET

Jane Harriet first came to work for Action Against Hunger in 1999 as a clinical officer at a Therapeutic Feeding Center (TFC) in Uganda. She was also in charge of the drug inventory and ran the drug store. In 2001, the TFC lost its funding but regained it a year later, and this time around Jane was appointed supervisor of our severe malnutrition programs in Uganda's Gulu district.

During the interim, Jane had become a mother for the first time, and when she started working again, her daughter was barely a year old. At that time, we also had programs in Kitgum and Pader Districts, and Jane needed to visit them frequently. Just like working mothers everywhere, Jane struggled to balance motherhood with the demands of her job, but her commitment to help severely malnourished children was steadfast. In 2004, she was promoted to General Manager of all our severe malnutrition programs in Uganda.

As officials at Uganda's Ministry of Health got to know her, Jane's knowledge and effectiveness, her diplomacy and straightforwardness enhanced our reputation in Uganda. During the past two years, the Ministry has asked her to conduct TFC management training sessions throughout the country. She has become known as a readily available expert on severe malnutrition to whom partners throughout the country turn for advice and support.

This year we put Jane fully in charge of our TFC and community-based care programsand Jane gave birth to her second child. Yet even while she was on maternity leave for three months during the spring, she attended meetings, helped train new staff, and pitched in to help whenever her expertise was needed. In fact, this year and last, she served as an elected national staff representative on our National Staff Council in Uganda.