Our new expert water engineer arrived this week: a Colombian by the name of Katherine. Working for Action Against Hunger in Colombia for a number of years as a water engineer supporting Colombia’s displaced, Katherine arrived during what is known in Zimbabwe as the “cholera season”.
In 2008, Zimbabwe suffered a massive outbreak of cholera with over 100,000 cases reported and more than 4,000 people dead; the onset of the rains and poor sanitation are a deadly combination here, and part of our mandate is to ensure the spread of cholera is halted. Previously, Zimbabwe had water and sanitation services that were the envy of the continent, but following a decade of crippling inflation and under-investment, water and sanitation systems have become broken and ineffective, posing a grave threat to communities.
Since the outbreak in 2008, aid agencies and the government have worked hard to contain the rise and spread of cholera through targeted interventions, a state of readiness, and determination that the events of 2008 will not repeat themselves. These interventions aim to support the most basic of practices, notably hand washing, which is key to ensuring waterborne disease does not spread from one individual to another. At the same time, we are supporting initiatives to bring back water and sanitation standards to what they were a decade ago. Distributing soap and promoting hand washing can be a very simple but extremely effective means of halting the spread of cholera.
And, low and behold, three days after arriving in the country and after the snappiest of briefings, Katherine, our brand-new water engineer, is off to support a water and sanitation intervention in the southeast where we have recently heard of five new cholera cases. It’s Katherine’s first time in Africa her first time away from home. Talk about being thrown in to the deep end.
Lucy Ellis
Amelia Lyons
Ashley Sarangi
Rachel Eichholz
Emily Sloane
George Petropoulos
Rachel Roseberry is the Food Security and Livelihoods Program Manager in Karamoja, Uganda, a relatively insecure region that is known for its semi-arid climate and cattle raiding. Rachel’s background is in natural resource management; she has worked in that capacity in Tajikistan, Indonesia, Canada, and now Uganda. 
Bob Bongomin, born in Gulu, northern Uganda, is in his sixth year with Action Against Hunger. He currently manages ACF’s emergency water, sanitation & hygiene program in the Khyber Paktunkhwa province of Pakistan, where thousands of people have been affected by unprecedented flooding. 
Eric Rheinstein is the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Program Manager for Action Against Hunger in Walikale, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. He has worked with Action Against Hunger, various NGOs, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burundi, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Albania, northern Uganda, and Chad.
Keira Lowther is Action Against Hunger’s Head of Community Capacity Building in Swaziland. A paediatric nurse specialising in HIV and public health nutrition, she has worked in paediatric wards in east and central London and with Action Against Hunger in Chad, China and Swaziland. 
Rupert Leighton is the Country Director for Action Against Hunger in Zimbabwe. He has more than 15 years humanitarian experience in countries including Cambodia, Myanmar, El Salvador and Angola.
