Update Against Hunger - October 4, 2006
Field Notes:
Why I Worry about Media Coverage
Our colleagues in Paris have induced two French television networks and one radio network to broadcast reports from our operations in Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on World Food Day, October 16. These reports will be able to show hunger in a developing country during the nation’s first multi-party elections in 46 years. Plus, the country speaks French, which gives an audience in France particular interest in the Congo’s situation. The timing presents a neat confluence of news hooks for the French media.
We’re sincerely grateful for the public exposure of our work. But I fret that the larger picture will be ignored. We’ve had projects in the Congo since 1997, and our work is so far from finished that we expect to be there for many more years. Media stories are selected based on what’s new, so the media—and their audiences—will almost certainly forget about the situation in the Congo and move on to other stories. For us, a starving child today is no more tragic than a starving child tomorrow. For the media, however, tomorrow’s child is no longer news and as a result isn’t worth mentioning.
I hope audiences will remember, when we’re suddenly in the news and then not, that our beneficiaries continue to need assistance urgently, and our energy never flags providing it.
David Blanc
Program Director,
Action Against Hunger
New from US Headquarter:
Events to Promote World Food Day
To raise awareness of worldwide hunger on World Food Day, we've planned two events on October 16. The more glamorous program is called Artists Against Hunger. A community of professionals from the performing and fine arts will gather at Moe's, a bar at 80 Lafayette Street in Brooklyn from 8:00 p.m. to midnight on the 16th. Everyone who attends will be asked to donate a minimum of $25 to mingle with such artists as film director Jim Jarmusch and actors Matt Dillon, Steve Buscemi, and Cara Seymour, who will serve as hostess for the evening of art, film, music, and readings. (These artists and others have said they intend to be there with the proviso that their work schedules may conflict.) For a ticket, please e-mail Diane Burstein at href="mailto:dburstein@actionagainsthunger.org">dburstein@actionagainsthunger.org.
On the same day, we're launching a more casual event called Yogis Against Hunger. Yoga studios throughout New York City will offer information about us, opportunities to donate, and in many instances, a cut of their day's revenues in support of our work. If you take yoga classes, check our website href="/events/eventswww.actionagainsthunger.org/events for a list of participating yoga centers. If your favorite center isn't on the list and you would like it to join the program, again, please e-mail Diane Burstein at href="mailto:dburstein@actionagainsthunger.org">dburstein@actionagainsthunger.org.
News from the field:
New Directions in Pakistan
A year ago, a 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed at least 73,000 people and leveled villages across Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan. The United Nations estimated that 4 million people were affected, 1 million seriously. Their needs were vast, including blankets, drinking water, food, and winterized tents. Complicating the emergency was a Himalayan winter expected to arrive in full force momentarily. We opened a mission in Pakistan within days, and we’ve been aiding the local population ever since.
We’re happy to report that Pakistanis, guided in part by a government program called Build Back Better, have been energetically restoring their devastated communities using reinforced concrete that should withstand future tremors. Along major roads, towns are largely functioning again.
But the farther you travel from the main roads, the less has been accomplished. We estimate that 30%-40% of the population in the Kaghan Valley and 10%-20% in the Allai Valley are still in need of assistance to get through the returning winter. We’re soliciting funds to distribute food, winter clothing, stoves, and blankets, as well as for programs to rehabilitate water and irrigation systems, and to help teach income-generating activities to Pakistanis whose livelihoods were destroyed. In addition, we’re traveling even farther into the mountains to see if other communities are likewise in trouble.
Meanwhile, floods in the southeast have displaced 50,000 Pakistanis. Floods in May were worsened by torrential rain throughout the summer. One day the area received as much rain in 24 hours as it usually gets in a year. So we’ve similarly sent a team into the flooded area to assess needs and how we might serve them. Unfortunately for Pakistan, even a vigorous response to last year’s disaster hasn’t prevented a new one.
Person Profile:
Profile—Charibel Palmer
Until Charibel Palmer went to work for Action Against Hunger, she was “a follower,” she says. But for us, she had to become “a leader.”
Charibel was born and raised in the Philippines. But when she was 18, Charibel’s mother, a nurse, took a job at Harlem Hospital in New York City, and the family moved to Queens, which was Charibel’s first major culture shock. She earned a B.A. in anthropology at the State University of New York at Stonybrook and went to work as a teacher of English as a second language.
Then she decided to follow her mother’s path and became an R.N. at Columbia University. Charibel wanted to work for the Peace Corps, but she couldn’t because she wasn’t a U.S. citizen. So she became a bedside nurse at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, later moving to the intensive care unit.
Charibel discovered Action Against Hunger while at Columbia when she missed a presentation that we made there. She later checked us out on the Internet and submitted a résumé. In June 2005, we sent her to Gulu, in Uganda, where she managed 16 supplemental feeding centers employing approximately 40 national staff. She had never trained as a manager, she says, and suddenly instead of following doctors’ orders, she was required to make decisions herself. She found that firing workers was the hardest part of her job, she reports, but the best part was seeing her projects’ beneficiaries grow healthy.
Now, Charibel has finished her assignment in the field and is home, reuniting with her husband, who has been a freelance journalist in Iraq, most often for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey. He hopes to return to the Middle East to further his career, and Charibel wants to accompany him working for an NGO, ideally for us. She never felt insecure in Gulu, she says, but she’s a bit worried about the Middle East. Still, she’s ready to go. “I want to keep doing this kind of work,” she says.
