Key Takeaways:
- Solid Roots donated one percent of our total sales in October-December 2021 to Action Against Hunger.
- From 2019 to 2020, the number of undernourished people worldwide grew by as many as 161 million – a crisis attributed to conflict, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The organization is ramping up vaccine efforts in Somalia and South Sudan, but challenges remain.
Beating out two worthy organizations, Action Against Hunger, takes home the prize of being last quarter’s Root Cause of the Quarter, receiving one percent of Solid Roots’ sales from October-December 2021. Action Against Hunger has lofty goals that extend beyond addressing hunger. Apart from their programs to prevent and treat malnutrition, and improve access to clean water, they are also at the frontlines of providing lifesaving prevention of certain diseases, and COVID-19 is no exception.
Since 1979, when a group of French academics, scientists, and doctors banded together to create a better way to deal with hunger, Action Against Hunger has been a global movement aiming to end life-threatening hunger for good. But more work needs to be done. According to their website, world hunger is on the rise after it had been steadily declining for more than a decade. Global hunger now impacts 9.9 percent of people worldwide. But what’s more is that from 2019 to 2020, the number of undernourished people grew by as many as 161 million – a crisis attributed to conflict, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Action Against Hunger has set their sights on doing what they can to ease the burden the pandemic is placing on already vulnerable populations. Since the start of the pandemic, they have been delivering personal protective equipment, providing education materials, and getting quarantine facilities and hospitals up and running in Africa. Now, they are ramping up vaccine efforts in Somalia and South Sudan, as less than 10% of Africans are fully vaccinated.
In Somalia, Action Against Hunger combats vaccine mistrust by engaging communities in dialogue around the benefits of getting vaccinated. To date, they have been able to educate over 390,000 people. But now they’re taking this one step further by doling out shots, as well. With 42 vaccination sites up and running, they set an original goal to vaccinate 24,000 people. To date, they have surpassed that goal by vaccinating 38,000 people and counting.
Although the success in Somalia has been by all accounts impressive, South Sudan remains a challenge. So much work has been done to overcome vaccine skepticism, but now vaccine supply is an issue. Action Against Hunger is working in one of the hard to reach areas of the country that suffers from intense flooding due to climate change – the worst it's seen in 60 years. Even shipping the vaccine from the capital city of Juba is problematic as regional airports are flooded. Additionally, the team working in South Sudan planned to vaccinate 4,000 people, but only received 545 doses of the vaccine, highlighting the need for equitable global vaccine access.
As the evolution and spread of new variants shows, the COVID-19 pandemic is far from over. Equitable global vaccine access must be a top priority and that is how Solid Roots’ donation can help make a difference – by providing monetary support for organizations fighting for the cause.
If you have ideas for future Root Cause of the Quarter organizations you’d like us to consider, let us know here. And be sure to vote for our current Root Cause here! Thank you for your support in our mission.