Carving Out an Ethical Career - Part I

In this ongoing series Dawn Mellowship interviews women who have dedicated their careers to ethical causes. Could this be your next career move?

Hunger Pains

Amal is a nutritionist who spent time working in Action Against Hunger’s Therapeutic Feeding Centres in Niger. Action Against Hunger is, an international organisation that is at the forefront of the worldwide fight against hunger, with the long term goal of aiding vulnerable populations in recouping their self sufficiency.

Starting Out

I was a hospital based dietician originally. My first look at international humanitarian aid was working for four months at an orphanage at a nutrition centre in Honduras. The children that came in were really sick. I didn’t know if I was up to handling that kind of deprivation but I realised that I could see the positive side of what I was working towards.

I applied to Action Against Hunger because, from a nutrition point of view it has a very good reputation and it is very evidence based. I also liked that AAH is very much about autonomy and really helping people to get back on their feet.

I got a position in August last year to go to Niger in West Africa because there was a food crisis. I do believe that if NGOs like AAH had not gone out there at that time then it could have turned into a full fledged famine.

The Role

My work was mainly to deal with the modestly malnourished, before it became too late to save them. I set up feeding centres and had three teams of local staff. Each team had a nurse, but most of them had very little medical knowledge so I had to train them to be able to identify a child that is severely malnourished and with edema (swelling).

With these teams we set up 27 feeding centres in four different districts and in the six months I was there we admitted 17,000 kids. It was full on. At one point I was sleeping 5 hours a night and working 7 days a week, purely because the numbers of admissions kept going up even when we were expecting them to go down.

The other side of it is looking at trends and exploring other areas. We need to look at what’s happening and make sure we target as many people as possible as effectively as possible.

The Highs

You just can’t put a value on how rewarding it is. For instance, there was a site that we were considering opening and when we got there we realised that there were many severely malnourished and we were really under equipped. I held a dieing baby boy in my arms and in the absence of any medication I dripped watery sugar into his mouth, as his mother headed off to get permission from her husband to take the child to hospital. I could tell that this baby boy was slipping away into a coma but I was determined that he would not die without human contact.

A week later I went to the hospital to drop off some children and this woman came up to me. I didn’t recognise her or the child at first. Then after she mentioned the name of the place where we had set up I just looked at the child and along with all the mothers around me, screamed with joy because he had revived so much. I was fighting back the tears. It was quite something. You can’t beat that.

The other side is that you get to travel and immerse yourself in different cultures. You meet amazing people that give you so much strength.

The Lows

I have had children die in my arms and that is gut wrenching especially because you feel pretty helpless in those situations. You develop personal coping mechanisms and learn to get on with what you are doing.

I had very poor contact with my friends and family so I missed them. There were times when my mum wondered if I was still alive!

You just don’t see life in the same way though. When I watch the news I really understand the full impact. If the tube is running late I don’t stress out anymore. It puts everything into perspective.

Advice

It is tough to get into so keep persevering. The reason it is tough is because NGOs don’t have much money and they don’t want to waste it on someone who is not committed. You have to remember that it is a profession and not just a hobby because the amount of work, stress and responsibility you will be taking on is phenomenal.

For more information about Action Against Hunger’s work see www.aahuk.org.