Worth the smile of a healthy child

 

 

Analia Ramos holds a healthy baby girl in Torit, capital of Eastern Equatoria State. Photo courtesy of Analia Ramos

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Amidst civil conflict, economic turmoil, and chronic shortages of just about everything, Analia Ramos has helped the people of South Sudan battle hunger for nearly a year.

"I love the place, my job, and the people. I feel blessed," says Ramos, food security coordinator in Sudan for Concern Worldwide, a humanitarian relief and development organization.

A 2004-06 Rotary World Peace Fellow from Argentina, Ramos oversees projects that provide seeds and tools to poor households, establish seed banks and tree nurseries, and train people in agricultural plowing, beekeeping, and blacksmithing.

Ramos says the situation in South Sudan has deteriorated since she arrived last August.

"Insecurity has grown, the economic crisis has hit us all, the violations to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement have multiplied," she says. "Add to that the indictment of President Bashir [Omar Hassan al-Bashir] by the International Criminal Court, the expelling of 13 NGOs [nongovernmental organizations], and tribal conflict, and you have it all."

But Ramos says the knowledge that she is "helping to diminish the suffering of the people by shortening the hunger gap, and at times eliminating it," gives her great fulfillment.

She maintains that freedom from hunger is a basic human right. "Without that, you cannot have health, education, or any other right," she says. "But with any right, we all have responsibilities. People need to learn how to fish and not just be given the fish. It is their right to be able to feed themselves."

Ramos knew at age 7 that she wanted to be an agronomist and at age 12 that she wanted to work in Africa. Her fellowship experience at the University of Bradford was pivotal in shaping her career.

"Rotary gave me a new angle," she says. "I saw how working in food security contributes to peace, to achieve human rights for most of the people who do not have a voice."

Throughout history, Ramos says, hunger has claimed more lives than armed conflict or disease. "Hunger is the No. 1 killer," she says. "But it only makes news in big famines, and people forget, in most cases, it is a silent killer."

In the face of frequent food shortages, Ramos tries to help in any way she can. "Trying is worth the smile of a child, the knowledge that someone has gone to bed not hungry, that God has been there all the way, even in the difficult times," she says.