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 - December 6, 2006
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Field Notes: 

Our Annual Gala Sweeps Past $1 Million for the First Time

As we reported in the last issue of Update Against Hunger, on November 15 we held our annual World Food Day Gala honoring Susan Sarandon, the crusading actor; Dr. Daniel Py, an Action Against Hunger board member who helped develop the ophthalmic drug Ivermectin that treats river blindness and other diseases of the eye; and Ayaz Mohammed Amin, our National Staff Member of the Year, who shivered through the past winter living in a snow-covered tent in the Himalayas to ensure delivery of food and supplies to earthquake victims in Pakistan.

What we didn’t anticipate was that this year’s Gala would collect $1.07 million, the largest amount that the event has ever raised. All of us at Action Against Hunger wish to express our deepest gratitude to everyone involved in organizing the Gala as well as the generous attendees whose largess inspires us all.

David Blanc
Program Director,
Action Against Hunger

New from US Headquarter: 

Calling All Volunteers—Nationwide

From April 10 through May 7, 2007, we’ll stage our Restaurants Against Hunger 2007 fundraising campaign. We’re seeking 250 to 500 restaurants in 25 cities that will participate in Action Against Hunger's effort to end global hunger. During the campaign, patrons at participating restaurants will be asked to add $1 to their check to support Action Against Hunger’s lifesaving programs.

We need your help to make the campaign a success. We’re looking for volunteers to approach restaurateurs with packets of information and persuasive arguments so that top restaurants will participate. We need volunteers in the following cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. (Note that, thankfully, we’re already overwhelmed with volunteers in New York City.)

If you’d like to help us, you need to be a resident in one of the designated cities with the ability to travel (preferably by car) and enthusiasm for communicating and fundraising. To enlist in our campaign, please e-mail your contact information to href="mailto:press@actionagainsthunger.org" title="mailto:press@actionagainsthunger.org" >press@actionagainsthunger.org or call (212) 967-7800 x117. Santé!

Celebrate the Holidays with Organic Bouquet's Culinary Wreath and Help Action Against Hunger!

Action Against Hunger invites you to support its fight against hunger by purchasing an Organic Bouquet holiday wreath. Beautifully handcrafted, this wreath uses fresh, certified organic rosemary, thyme, and natural bay leaves, accented with organic red chili peppers to add a splash of eye-catching color. In addition to enhancing your home for the holidays, this wreath provides a year's supply of culinary herbs. And most importantly, it helps make a difference!
Organic Bouquet donates 10% of every sale to Action Against Hunger. href="http://www.organicbouquet.com/aahholidaywreath" >Click here to purchase a wreath.

News from the field: 

We're Making Progress Against Hunger Complicated by HIV/AIDS

Malnutrition increases the risk of developing AIDS in people affected with HIV—and AIDS increases the risk of malnutrition. As the immune systems of people with HIV/AIDS become depleted, each new infection of other diseases makes their bodies less capable of fighting their HIV/AIDS infection. Better nutrition enables their bodies to fight diseases, to protect their immune systems, and to fight off advancing HIV.

Yet people infected with HIV/AIDS often suffer from reduced nutritional intake due to combinations of depression, diarrhea, isolation, loss of appetite, nausea, pain caused by illness, and vomiting. Income for food is also reduced when victims are unable to work. Yet healthy nutrition is necessary for the absorption and excretion of anti-HIV/AIDS medications.

Action Against Hunger’s programs can help, and we’re also researching ways to improve our effectiveness. In Malawi, for example, we’re working with the Institute of Child Health in London to identify the optimal regimen for treating HIV-positive children with severe malnutrition. As part of our research, we’re looking at caregivers’ and health workers’ responses to the stigma of HIV infection. We’ve started a pilot project that distributes nutrition supplements to moderately and severely malnourished patients starting anti-HIV/AIDS therapy, and we’ve rolled out this program across Malawi. We’re simultaneously training Ministry of Health staff in nutrition units to offer voluntary counseling and testing.

Preventative antibiotic therapy can reduce mortality from AIDS by 43%. By getting children and mothers tested for their HIV status, Action Against Hunger can then help them toward sustainable antibiotic regimens. Read the report on our activities, href="/news/press/dossier_hunger_and_aids_dec01_06“Hunger and HIV/AIDS: a devastating combination.”

Person Profile: 

Profile-Paula Tenaglia

Born in Geraldton, Ontario, Paula Tenaglia moved constantly during her childhood because of her father’s employment, and as a result, today no place in particular feels like home. “It’s wherever I’m living,” she says. Her interest in making a home outside Canada was fueled by a high-school student-exchange program that sent her to Brazil. When she went to college in Guelph, Ontario, she studied international development with an emphasis on Latin America, which entailed a year of studying and working with an HIV/AIDS program in Ecuador.

After she graduated, the World Food Programme hired Paula as a logistician and sent her to Guatemala where she often coordinated projects with Action Against Hunger. “I thought the programs they were doing were really fantastic,” she says. After two years, Paula went to England to earn a master’s degree in migration studies. Then she applied for a job with us, and we sent her to help open a new mission in Kenya as deputy head of mission. Eight months later, she became our program coordinator in South Sudan.

At first, Paula worked mostly out of Nairobi, but for the final eight months of her assignment, she moved from project to project in the field and loved it all, especially sleeping in a tent as part of a team in the harsh Sudanese climate. “Every day working for Action Against Hunger is a surprise,” she says, “and after a while, nothing scares you or freaks you out.” The programs she oversaw varied, but many focused on rice cultivation and fishing. Often, Paula organized cooperatives among the Sudanese to enhance their business prospects. She particularly enjoyed seeing how fast our programs produced results. “I wish I could have been in the field more,” she says.

Paula admits that when she first chose humanitarian work her motivation was to travel. But now she’s committed and can’t imagine working for a commercial business. Being a flywheel in a corporate machine, she says, has no allure, no matter how large the salary. Back from South Sudan, her next assignment for us returns her to Guatemala, this time as our Country Director there. For however long the assignment lasts, Guatemala will be Paula’s home.