ActionAid
At ActionAid we take advantage of over 30 years of knowledge and experience in fighting poverty. We don't impose solutions, but work with communities over many years to strengthen their own efforts to throw off poverty.
In all our work, we apply the following principles:
- we work together with poor people, local partners and organisations in combating poverty
- we focus on fighting against the causes of poverty, not just the results.
- we have prioritised five areas of work where we can make the most difference: education, HIV & AIDS, food, emergencies, women and girls.
Our project work in Africa, Asia and Latin America is at the heart of what we do. We have developed projects that enable people living in poverty to claim their rights - to, for example, education, food, and drugs for treating HIV & AIDS. These issues are often linked, and so we have developed projects that tackle them holistically.
We also campaign and lobby the UK Government, as well as influential institutions such as the World Bank, World Trade Organisation (WTO), IMF, and EU – to change the policies and practices that exacerbate poverty.
Harry Freeland/ActionAid
Sopheak (L), 12, and her best friend, pictured in Chambok village, Cambodia.
Carried by tiger mosquitoes, Dengue Fever thrives in the tropical climate of Chambok, Cambodia. Yet thanks to a single legacy gift, ActionAid was able to work with Sopheak's community to save lives. Gifts in Wills are used across the world, wherever the need is greatest, however this particular project was funded by a supporter who had sponsored a child in Chambok.
Quite simply with training, the provision of mosquito nets and the community's willingness to work together, we have helped to create a better future. Today everyone in the village – from elders to parents to children – is aware of Dengue fever and how to prevent it. And as Som Hon, Sopheak's mother knows, prevention is definitely better than cure. Dengue fever starts with flu like symptoms, but it can have deadly complications, sometimes causing the liver to become enlarged and circulatory
failure.
ActionAid provided Som Hon and Sopheak with mosquito nets to sleep under and also distributed them to over 500 vulnerable families. We have also arranged training for over 1,000 people, so they understand what causes Dengue fever, how it spreads and the symptoms they need to look out for. Som Hon explained:
"We learnt that we should fill in pot holes in our compounds because this is where water can gather in which mosquitoes breed...I have now done this and I also make sure that my daughter wears long sleeves during the evenings in the rainy season."
What is most inspiring though is that children have this knowledge too. Sopheak spoke to me with such enthusiasm and delight about her learning:
"I remember the Dengue fever training, it was really good. I remember learning that we should clear away bushes and coconut shells which collect water that mosquitoes breed in."
This simple life-saving knowledge will give Sopheak a future that was sadly denied to her brothers and sisters. What's really incredible is that it will offer her children and the generation that follows them a better future too.
This incredible work all started with an ActionAid supporter's decision to leave a gift in their Will, and their generous legacy of £3,000. Regardless of the amount, be it large or small, it shows just how effective gifts in Wills are when it comes to bringing about lasting change.
A legacy of £3000 could buy 500 mosquito nets and provide training (for a community of 1000) on how to prevent the incidence of dengue fever. Knowledge which can then be passed on from one generation to the next.
£70 could buy a bicycle for a school girl in Ghana.
£118 could cover the costs of schoolbooks, equipment, uniforms and fees for two HIV positive children like Edrine in Uganda.
