By THIRSTY
Rachel Zelon founded Hunger Relief International (HRI)
in 2009 as a Judeo-
Christian nonprofit relief organization working to
alleviate the impact of hunger on the lives of malnourished children and their
families as a first step in a long-term strategy to achieve self-sufficiency. HRI
serves those affected by extreme poverty or natural disasters who lack food,
water, education and/or sanitation by responding to crisis, building resilience
and creating opportunities that treat and prevent the short and long-term effects
of hunger and malnutrition. A provider of more than 11 million meals, HRI spends
91 cents of every dollar raised directly on its program expenses.
It was Stay Thirsty
Magazine’s privilege to visit with Rachel Zelon for this Conversation and to
name Hunger Relief International the Stay
Thirsty Worthy Cause for Fall 2018.
STAY
THIRSTY: What is Beat Hunger and why did you create this
campaign?
RACHEL
ZELON: The Beat Hunger campaign was created to bring
awareness to the ongoing need for nutritious food and support for millions of
Haitians living in extreme poverty. While Haiti is largely out of the news
cycle, the need remains critical!
STAY
THIRSTY: How were the celebrity drummers for this project
chosen and how have they raised the visibility of your work?
RACHEL
ZELON: In order to speak to the widest audience, we approached
well-known, highly influential artists from a variety of genres including rock,
R&B, hip hop, alternative and classical. Stewart Copeland, the Grammy-winning
drummer of The Police, and Sheila E., known for her work with Prince, are
all-time greats, listed in the Top 100 drummers of all time in Rolling Stone. We were also able to work
with newer artists like Rico Nichols, the talented, young drummer for Pulitzer and
Grammy-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar. The complete roster includes Stewart
Copeland, Sheila E., Kenny Aronoff, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Stephen Perkins, Mix
Master Mike, Kristen Gleeson-Prata, and Rico Nichols.
Each of the artists has
worked closely with us, and utilized their personal media platforms, to support
the cause. The hashtag “#BeatHunger” organically generated more than 4.5
million impressions across social media in just a few weeks. The videos have
generated hundreds of thousands of views around the world. Like Stewart
Copeland said, “…we’re banging up a noise to get society to focus on what can
be done to beat hunger on this earth.” We are so grateful to these artists for
donating their time and talent to HRI.
STAY
THIRSTY: Why did you choose Haiti back in 2017 as a location
for Hunger Relief International (HRI) to focus on?
RACHEL
ZELON: It was actually 2010 when we chose to work in Haiti.
One of the primary reasons was that we were just launching HRI at the time of
the massive earthquake that left hundreds of thousands of people dead, homeless
and facing dire conditions in Haiti. Additionally, Haiti is one of the 15
poorest countries in the world today, and yet it is located only a little over
two hours from U.S. shores. It seemed an obvious choice for HRI to work with
suffering people in a neighboring country, where hunger, malnutrition, extreme
poverty, lack of clean water and sanitation are rampant.
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| Young Girl in Haiti |
STAY
THIRSTY: What is HRI’s core mission and where has HRI gone
before?
RACHEL
ZELON: HRI is still a small, albeit growing, organization. Our
core mission is to alleviate the impact of hunger on the lives of malnourished
children and their families as a first step in a long-term strategy to achieve
family and community self-sufficiency. Right now, HRI is working in Haiti and
Guatemala. We are determined to ensure that we are substantive in our work – we
don’t want to say we work in 10 countries but barely scrape the surface
anywhere. I’d much rather we focus our efforts in two or three countries and
really have a significant impact on people’s lives. Haiti, as I previously
mentioned, is one of the 15 poorest countries in the world and Guatemala has
the 6th highest rate of chronic malnutrition and stunted growth
among children under the age of 5. Both very compelling reasons to focus our
energy and resources in these two countries – neighbors of the U.S.
STAY
THIRSTY: You have devoted your life for the past 30 years to
humanitarian efforts by putting your own boots on the ground to help others in
need. Which projects have been the most rewarding for you and which have been
the most challenging?
RACHEL
ZELON: I have loved every project I have been lucky enough to
work on throughout my career. The work we are doing today in Haiti and
Guatemala is certainly among the most challenging and rewarding. I say
challenging because we are talking about changing behaviors and that is very,
very difficult. We’ve seen it over the last 50+ years of work in developing
countries. We know that certain behaviors will result in improved outcomes for
children; in other words, better health and as a result, opportunity. However,
the importance of customs, traditions and cultures on human behavior cannot be
minimized either. So, finding that balance of identifying ways that will lead
to behavioral change while being respectful of the customary is challenging, in
a good way. That is why I think that HRI’s approach – working with host country
national professionals (Haitians, Guatemalans, etc.) leading the way is a
critical factor to affecting positive change and ultimately to giving children,
families and communities an opportunity to improve their futures. The rewards
are when we have parents that have never been able to send their children to
school, able to do so with money they have earned after a 24-class training
program! It is seeing children turn into responsible, self-sufficient adults
and parents, with healthy children.
The key for me is to take
it one day at a time, one person at a time and to understand that if we save or
change one life, we have truly saved the whole world.
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| Young Boy in Haiti |
STAY
THIRSTY: HRI acts by “responding to crisis, building resilience
and creating opportunities that treat and prevent short and long-term effects
of hunger and malnutrition.” How do you go about setting up a program like the
one in Haiti and how do you measure its effectiveness? What has been the impact
of HRI’s work in Haiti vs. your work in other countries?
RACHEL
ZELON: This is where we take our lessons learned from years
of personal experience and that of other professionals around the world. Before
anything else, we will always implement a needs assessment to understand what
the needs and gaps in service are, and how they are impacting a specific target
population. Then, we begin to work as a team – I am a very strong believer that
teamwork is the absolute key to achieving the best programs – to come up with
innovative strategies to address the gaps in service. We always take into
consideration the local customs, culture and traditions, and make sure that
every activity and program is respectful of these. Once we have a detailed
plan, literally down to what we will do each day, we begin implementation. And
that’s where the next challenge arises – the need for flexibility! A diverse
group of professionals may have the best ideas in the world but that does not
mean the execution of those plans and ideas will work as intended. So, we
always need to be able to make adjustments as needed, to rethink and re-tool
quickly and appropriately. Once we finally feel comfortable with how a program
is functioning, it’s really a matter of implementing, monitoring, evaluating
and always making modifications, as needed.
You ask how we measure
our effectiveness – that will vary with the specific program, and the goals and
objectives we set for each. In Haiti, for example, we have seen progressive and
measurable improvement in the health and well-being of children living in
residential institutions. Their growth – weight and height for age – has
improved and most of the 1,500+ children we work with are well within the norm
or approaching normal. We have seen improved academic achievement due to
improved diet and health, and fewer waterborne and sanitation-related
illnesses. All of these represent measurable outcomes that show a nutritional
support program is working. With the families we are working with, we also have
measurable outcomes – all of the families and children participating in our
Children First Program during the 2017/2018 academic year are re-enrolled in
school, their parents have paid for their tuition, uniforms and school supplies
from money they earned through their new or expanded businesses as a result of
the HRI parent training program. The health of the children is also followed
carefully by our nurse on the ground (Haitian, of course) and these children
are all receiving nourishing food both at home and at school. These are all
very positive indicators of the “success” of programs.
Every country and program
has its own unique challenges and varying needs. The key to any program is to
start where the beneficiary is and go from there. We are patient, professional
and always, always work in partnership with local communities, churches,
schools and businesses. It truly “takes a village” and lots of patience to see
true change.
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| Young Boy with Rachel Zelon in Haiti |
STAY
THIRSTY: How do you and HRI work with local institutions, like
churches, schools and local governments, in crisis regions?
RACHEL
ZELON: In any program, project or crisis relief effort a good
organization will partner with other like-minded organizations also working in
the area – we don’t ever want to duplicate services, especially in an emergency
situation. In addition, at HRI our key partners will always be local
institutions that include, but are certainly not limited to, community groups,
schools, churches and certainly local governments. The type of work that we do,
whether it’s an emergency relief effort or working on long-term, sustainable
solutions to hunger or extreme poverty, absolutely requires diverse partners
that bring their specific skill sets, knowledge, influence and leadership to
the table.
STAY
THIRSTY: Your organization raises a great deal of funds. Where
does the money typically come from and how much of the funding goes to your
programs versus HRI’s administration and overhead?
RACHEL
ZELON: Thanks, we would love to raise more funds and be able
to reach even more vulnerable children and families. HRI’s funding comes
largely from individual donors from all over the world as well as churches,
synagogues and family foundations. On average over the last eight years, HRI
has spent ninety-one cents of every dollar directly on our programs, leaving
nine cents of every dollar to cover our fundraising and administration. That’s
a pretty good percentage for programs, and keep in mind, we do not have
significant amounts of GIK (Gifts-in-Kind) that skew the percentages of many
organizations out there. When we say ninety-one cents on the dollar, that is
exactly what we mean!
STAY
THIRSTY: Where is the next crisis you are targeting for your
humanitarian work? How do you determine when it is time to move on to help
another region?
RACHEL
ZELON: We are committed to our work and our teams in Haiti
and Guatemala. Much remains to be done. In crisis situations, we work with
several partners around the globe to provide assistance to those in need in any
way that we can. It’s what we do.
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