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VISION & MISSION

Our vision is a world free of curable diseases that perpetuate poverty.

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:

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  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:

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  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.

OUR CORE VALUES

Professionalism and Integrity

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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.

OUR STORY

Professor Zvi Bentwich, MD, was one of the first doctors to deal with HIV/AIDS in Israel. During his time working in the field, he began to notice a correlation between intestinal parasites and HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria and other major diseases. After years of thorough research, he came up with groundbreaking evidence that there is a direct link between the two, and if intestinal parasites are eradicated, the likelihood of HIV/AIDS infection drops dramatically as well. After this realization, he could no longer sit back and continue exclusively in research. He knew he must reach out to the most vulnerable communities and begin the NTD eradication process, both to mitigate the effects it has on HIV/AIDS and to ensure that the detrimental effects of the unnecessary diseases come to an end.

Professor Bentwich had a dream to eradicate NTDs, and just like that, NALA was born.

 

It began 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.

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