Update Against Hunger - May 3, 2007
Field Notes:
The Chronicle of Philanthropy Celebrates our Executive Director
The Chronicle of Philanthropy, among the most influential journals
covering non-profit organizations, recently profiled our executive director, Nan
Dale. Here are several excerpts from its coverage.
Board members say Ms. Dale…has the management and fund-raising experience
necessary to help [Action Against Hunger] expand its reach…. “We have grown as
an organization despite ourselves,” says Burton K. Haimes, a New York lawyer and
board chair of Action Against Hunger USA. “We need someone who can
professionalize all aspects of the organization, and I believe she will be able
to do that….”
Ms. Dale says one of her top priorities will be expanding the charity’s
fund-raising efforts. In the past the group has raised money primarily through a
handful of special events, and she hopes to step up solicitations of foundations
and corporations…. To determine how to pursue those and other goals, she has
begun a strategic-planning process….
In an interview with The Chronicle, Ms Dale [said:] “I love the
passion of the staff. They work with minimal resources and do an extraordinary
amount out of sheer guts and passion and energy."
New from US Headquarter:
A Glittering Kickoff Launched Restaurants Against Hunger 2007
On April 12 in New York City, we staged a pulsating kickoff to start this
year’s month-long Restaurants Against Hunger campaign—during which 81
restaurants in the U.S. and Canada are collecting donations from diners in
support of our programs. More than 650 party-goers crowded together to sample
food and drink from 18 supporting restaurants, to bid during an auction of chef
jackets decorated by trendy fashion designers, to watch video images of our
programs, and generally to celebrate our work.
After African-soul-jazz singer Somi entertained, jackets designed
specifically for 15 chefs by 15 designers were sold to attendees for as much as
$2,500 each. The evening’s presentation was led by Robert Irvine, host of
Dinner Impossible on cable TV’s Food Network, and Cat Cora, president
and founder of Chefs for Humanity and the Food Network’s first female Iron Chef.
Cat also brought to auction a chef’s jacket from Buckingham Palace.
All in all, the effervescent soiree felt like a hip blending of the Food
Network with TV’s fashion-obsessed Project Runway—a mixture that earned us media
attention (The New York Times, Time Out New York, etc.) and
created a buzz that we hope will induce diners through May 9 to patronize our
supporting restaurants and leave behind generous contributions. For a list of
those estimable dining rooms, click on href="http://www.restaurantsagainsthunger.net/"
class="orangeLinks1">www.restaurantsagainsthunger.net.
News from the field:
We Attack Another Pocket of Malnutrition in the Congo
Last September, the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization discovered an alarming nutritional situation in Bandundu Province, approximately 325 miles from Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Within two months, we sent a team to make a nutrition survey that confirmed above-normal rates of acute malnutrition and an urgent need for intervention.
Communities in the district of Kwilu were surviving chiefly on locally grown cassava (known as “manioc” in French, the Congo’s official language) and farina made from it—inadequate sources of protein. Some villagers occasionally ate fish, but not often. And making matters worse, blight recently struck the cassava crop. The few farmers who produced different, more nutritious crops or raised livestock sold their produce rather than consume it in order to have sufficient money for health care, schooling for their children, clothes, and similar essentials.
We dispatched an emergency nutrition team to assist local organizations and the Ministry of Health in handling hundreds of new admissions per month of acutely malnourished patients at local feeding centers. Despite the best efforts of these centers, workers were overwhelmed and inadequately equipped.
Our team trained staffs at hospitals and feeding centers while also educating communities about nutrition, hygiene, nursing for new mothers, and the need to refer their children to nutrition centers. At four sites in the district, we also distributed needed equipment, medicines, therapeutic milk formulas to rescue starving children, and educational materials.
Our efforts in Kwilu district are ongoing. Local communities still need lasting solutions to the area’s food insecurity, including seeds and farming equipment. Our program there typifies what we do: emergency intervention when crisis strikes, coupled with in-depth analyses of local food security to determine sustainable solutions to eliminate hunger.
Person Profile:
Profile—Chris Monnon
Chris Monnon was born in New Brunswick, Canada, but because
his father was in the military, Chris grew up in a variety of towns in Canada
and Europe. He earned his college degree in forestry, then spent two decades in
the field. After being downsized out of a job for the third time, however, he
took a year off to travel in Southeast Asia and Africa while figuring out how he
wanted to spend the second half of his life.
Travel appealed strongly, so
Chris studied international project management at Humber College in Toronto,
specializing in international development and relief. Then he worked as a
logistician for Doctors Without Borders, but the job kept him in an office away
from beneficiaries. Deciding that he wanted contact with the people he was
helping—and to learn French as well as to travel—he approached Action Against
Hunger. His motivation, he says, was “wanting to see the good results.”
We sent him to Dubié in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where as head of base, logistician, and administrator, Chris was the only expatriate supervising a Congolese staff that ran four programs: a therapeutic feeding center, a supplemental feeding center, a water-and-sanitation project that improved local water supplies, and a food security program that distributed seeds and tools while educating 1,000 local families.
When his base in Dubié exhausted its funding, Chris worked briefly in Lubumbashi. Now he’s vacationing in Nepal, but when he returns he’ll be eager to return to the field. In Dubié, he explains, after a bad day he’d wander over to the therapeutic feeding center, see his staff curing severely malnourished children, and remind himself why he worked so hard. Of his work for Action Against Hunger, he says appreciatively, “Every day is an adventure.”
