Why your support is needed - A message from Bill Knott*

In the nine years or so that I have been helping Action Against Hunger to raise money and awareness amongst the UK restaurant community, I have been lucky enough to visit several of their projects in different corners of the globe.

Last February, I was a guest of Action Against Hunger in the Sri Lankan town of Trincomalee, on the east coast, in a district torn apart by civil war and then ravaged by the tsunami nearly two years ago. Populations already displaced by war then fell victim to an appalling natural disaster.

Action Against Hunger has been working in Trincomalee for 10 years, and has gained the respect of all the communities – Sinhalese, Muslim and Tamil – that they have tried to help. The work of Action Against Hunger’s local staff, to gain the confidence of communities and to translate and articulate their needs, is absolutely vital.

            Bill visiting the organisation's programmes in Cambodia

The main thrust of Action Against Hunger’s philosophy is to help people to help themselves: in Sri Lanka, that might mean distributing seeds and tools to rice farmers, fishing nets and boats to local fishing families, or giving out kits to let people start small groceries. At the same time, cleaning out contaminated wells and building proper latrines helps to ensure a supply of clean drinking water and to prevent disease.

The small town of Muttur, an hour or so’s boat ride across beautiful Trincomalee bay, is almost a microcosm of the problems that Sri Lanka faces. It is predominantly Muslim, but under Government control, and very near to autonomous Tamil enclaves.

Action Against Hunger uses it as a base to reach some of the most isolated Tamil villages, and, on the morning I visited their office and warehouse on Muttur’s main street, the place was alive with local staff planning the logistics of the day: deciding which vehicles should go where, what they needed to take with them or working out from wallcharts which communities had yet to be assessed.

This they cheerfully did, and we spent the day touring the region. The dedication that our local staff, mostly Tamils, showed towards Action Against Hunger’s work and to their own communities was remarkable. I left Muttur knowing that the money raised in London was being used in the best possible ways.

                                                                                                                                                       Children in Sri Lanka

Then, in the first week of August, Sophie from Action Against Hunger in London rang me with the most dreadful news. In an act of savagery since condemned by Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan and the entire aid community, all 17 of our local workers based in Muttur had been executed. They were found face down, wearing Action Against Hunger T-shirts, in the same happy, chaotic office I had visited a few months before. In the back of each of their heads was a single bullet.

There is now huge international pressure to make sure that this barbaric and cowardly act does not go unpunished. Action Against Hunger has decided to continue its work in Sri Lanka: if the brutal deaths of 17 of its staff are to stand for anything, then we must all try to ensure that the humane values of friendship, compassion and tolerance that they exemplified are not destroyed by violence and hatred.

Which is why I urge you to support Restaurants Against Hunger during October: visit the restaurants who are supporting us, persuade your local restaurant to join in, buy your copy of the new Harden’s guide online, or just visit the website and leave a donation. An astonishing 93% of the money you give will go directly to support Action Against Hunger’s projects in the field. As our slogan this year says: fight hunger, eat out.

Bill Knott, September 2006

*Bill began his career as a chef before becoming a food writer. He has written for a number of magazines and newspapers including the Daily Telegraph and Eat Soup magazine, which he co-founded, and has appeared frequently on radio and television. A supporter of Action Against Hunger for the past 9 years, Bill has been actively involved in the organisation, visiting the programmes in Kosovo, Malawi, Cambodia and Sri Lanka.