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 - March 1, 2006
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Field Notes: 

It's a Gift to Be Simple

Dear Action Against Hunger Team Member,

Once when I was in the field, an expat remarked that water-and-sanitation is a very simple proposition. You dig a hole, and you either put something in or take something out. End of story.

Too bad it isn't. Such simplifications offer a lot of truth, easy understanding, and reassurance. But as soon as you start trying to put simple ideas into practice, complications beset you from all sides. When you dig a borehole for water, for example, you need to locate it knowledgeably to maximize output as well as purity of the water. Then you need to train beneficiaries how to use and maintain the hole's pumping equipment. When a latrine is needed, you need to show beneficiaries how to choose its location to maximize sanitation for the entire community, then you must show everyone how to maintain its hygienic benefits, and so on.

At Action Against Hunger, our goals are nearly always simple. Achieving them, however, is nearly always complex.

Cathy Skoula
Executive Director,
Action Against Hunger (ACF)

New from US Headquarter: 

ACF on the Silver Screen

New Yorkers will have an opportunity to see screenings of two films about Action Against Hunger. On Tuesday, March 14, at 6:00 p.m., the Fashion Institute of Technology's Committee on Diversity, together with its Advertising and Communications Department, will sponsor a free screening of Tom Weidlinger's hour-long Heart of the Congo, which we've discussed in past issues. Called "heartwarming but unsentimental" by Phillip Fradkin, former foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, Tom's superb film provides an unsparingly clear-eyed and gripping view of our work in the field. (No kidding.)

The movie will be shown in FIT's Katie Murphy Amphitheater at the corner of 27th Street and Seventh Avenue on the first floor of building D. Following the screening, a panel discussion will explore both the documentary's subject matter and the type of aid given by organizations such as Against Hunger. Panelists will include Cathy Skoula, our Executive Director; David Blanc, our Program Director; and Dr. Desiree Koslin, Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching at FIT.

Then a second documentary about our work will be included in the UN Film Festival, which runs Saturday and Sunday, April 22 and 23, at the New School's Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street. One of the festival's "Stories from the Field," the movie about us is called The Hunger Gap, and it reports on our recent efforts in Niger and Mali where droughts precipitated a hunger crisis. TV journalist Kiran Khalid and videographer Richard Rowley, whose reports from the scene aired internationally on CNN, assembled the documentary.

The Hunger Gap will be shown alongside such other documentaries as From Peace to Politics: Burundian Women Take Charge; Building Trust: Stories From the Field - India; and Deadly Catch - Lake Victoria's AIDS Crisis. At present, the screening schedule hasn't been finalized, but once it has, you'll be able to find The Hunger Gap's time slot by logging onto http://www.mcainy.org/unfilm.

News from the field: 
Floods Challenge Us in Bolivia

Even while droughts are ravaging Africa, relentless rains are wreaking havoc in Bolivia, leaving an estimated 100,000 people homeless. Flooded rivers, mudslides, and power outages are plaguing the north and east of the country.

Land-locked Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, and much of it is barren. Many of its remote communities are difficult to reach even in good weather, and the recent floods have made access to some areas impossible. Bolivian authorities say flood victims need tents, food, and medicine, particularly for villagers who are sick from drinking polluted water.

Weather forecasters are predicting weeks of continued heavy rainfall, so our Madrid headquarters is dispatching a team of experts in water-and-sanitation, logistics, nutrition, and the complexities of supplying communities with potable water. Our goal is to provide relief to approximately 20,000 displaced flood victims. Our initial assistance will include water pumps, water purification tablets, and perhaps dry food if it's needed. We'll also evaluate crop damage so we can assess whether we should plan long-term assistance.

Person Profile: 

ProfileTrayle Kulshan

Back from Darfurand Ready for More

Even as a child, Trayle Kulshan trained for Action Against Hunger, though she had no idea she was doing so. Until she was 12, Trayle lived on the San Juan Islands, off Washington State, and her home lacked electricity and running water. "It was good preparation for the field," she says.

Trayle majored in agricultural engineering at college in South Carolina, then she studied hydrogeology at grad school in California. After graduation she joined the Peace Corps and went to Guinea for two years where she worked in health education. "Then I needed to get paid," she says. Trayle discovered Action Against Hunger on the Internet and checked us out with her Peace Corps supervisor who knew of us and approved.

At the time, we had a job opening for a water-and-sanitation professional in Liberia, which Trayle figured was a perfect fit. But we sent her instead to D.R. Congo, where she worked protecting springs, creating latrines, and educating water committees, first in Shabunda, then also in Baraka. "I loved Congo," she says. "We had a good team." She encountered few surprises, she adds, even though her projects were largely inaccessible by roads. She learned, however, that "there's always a problem and there's always a solution." Her proudest accomplishment was "coordinating the collaboration of so many people at so many levels always to find a solution."

Now her Congo assignment is finished, but she's eager to go back to the field, ideally in a different country to expand her horizons. And she likes working for Action Against Hunger. "ACF did a good job matching my experience with my assignment," she says. As a veteran of solving our challenges, she adds, she's ready for bigger ones.