NALA Foundation

MISSION

Our mission is to break the poverty cycle by eradicating Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) and other diseases of poverty. The NALA holistic approach works towards eliminating the root causes of those diseases, leading to sustainable poverty reduction, and healthier livelihoods by:

1. ​Assisting national and international actors in designing and implementing programs for controlling NTDs and other diseases of poverty using community engagement and health education to facilitate behavioral change.
2. Researching, developing and testing new NTD control modalities and tools.
3. Advocating for holistic NTD control models with stakeholders and decision makers that promote behavioral change.

NALA's NTD control model focuses on complementing the MDA campaign with intense community engagement that include:

1. ​Exploring together with community stakeholders the root causes of the diseases, and potential ways for mitigation and prevention.
2. Intense health education on all levels including interactive tools and games.
3. Community based water and sanitation improvements that are executed by the community with technical support by the NALA team.

Core Values

Professionalism and Integrity

​NALA is committed to continuous learning and improvement to ensure that its activities provide appropriate and sustainable solutions to health challenges in diverse contexts and environments. The foundation will work to streamline its processes and provide maximum transparency on its operations.

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Partnership and Humility

 NALA works together with local, national and international partners. The NALA community engagement model is based on creating tools together with the community in an inclusive and culturally sensitive manner that empowers the community to create and implement new solutions to overcome the challenges they face.

Innovation

 NALA continually works with community partners as well as with technical experts to come up with new and effective ways to eradicate neglected tropical diseases and multiply the impact of its activities.

NALA began working as a small volunteer based organization, working in one community in Ethiopia which had an extremely high NTD prevalence. Since then, NALA has developed into a thriving organization, working in many communities both on the ground and giving technical assistance to local authorities.