Concern Worldwide, Valid Nutrition and Irish Aid were named winners of the Organisational System/Process category at the Inaugural Irish Times All Island Innovation Awards in association with Intertrade Ireland.  The award recognised the extraordinary Irish led success of Community Therapeutic Care (CTC), a revolutionary method of treating childhood malnutrition which has resulted in the saving of millions of children’s lives across the developing world.  The were awards held at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Kilmainham, on Wednesday, 24th March, 2010.

Summary of the CTC project.

CONCERN WORLDWIDE, IRISH AID & VALID NUTRITION A partnership between the three organisations, the end result is Community Therapeutic Care (CTC) and a new approach to tackling childhood malnutrition in developing countries. 

The most fatal form of child malnutrition – severe acute malnutrition (Sam) – affects over 19 million children and is associated with up to two million deaths annually. Previously, treatment was limited to a small number of in-patient feeding centres. Due to vast distances from villages to centres and long inpatient stays, accessing traditional inpatient treatment often caused parents to spend significant money on transport and to spend long periods away. CTC brings appropriate treatment into local clinics and engages communities to identify and follow-up malnourished children at household level. It is now promoted as best practice by the UN and a growing number of ministries of health and aid agencies.

Event: Hunger in a World of Plenty – Solutions? 21 January 2010

Kevin Farrell, the Irish Government’s Special Envoy for Hunger will be speaking at an event hosted by Tom Arnold, CEO of Concern Worldwide: “Hunger in a World of Plenty-Solutions?”  The Event which will be held in the Royal Irish Academy, Dawson Street, Dublin 2, will take place on the 21 January 2010 and will run from 9:30 – 11:30 am.  The lead speaker at this Event will be Roger Thurow, a journalist with the Wall Street Journal for over twenty years and now with the Chicago Council of Global Affairs and acclaimed author of Enough: Why the World’s Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty.  Other speakers will include, Martin Bloem, Head of Nutrition at the World Food Programme.

WORLD FOOD DAY

World Food Day is celebrated every year around the world on 16 October – the date of the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. World Food Day aims to heighten public awareness of the plight of the world's hungry and malnourished and to encourage people worldwide to take action against hunger.

The World Food Day theme for 2009 is "Achieving food security in times of crisis".

The number of chronically hungry people this year has risen by 105 million to top one billion for the first time. This number represents close to one in six people on the planet.

More than 150 countries observe this event every year. To mark World Food Day in Ireland, Irish Aid is hosting a seminar on 'Delivering for the Poor and Hungry - the role of Agricultural Research' (2.30pm, Friday 16 October, 2009 at the Irish Aid Information and Volunteering Centre).

Leading international agricultural researchers, such as Dr Carlos Seré, Director General of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) and Dr Richard Jones, Assistant Director for Eastern and Southern Africa at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) will attend.

Irish Aid is also running a multi-media exhibition, which is timed to coincide with World Food Day. It features video, slideshows, photographs and soundscapes to introduce the people of Khulungira, a village in Malawi which has benefited from advances in agricultural research. Find out more