Lavoreo A Fin Di Bene

Our relationship...

Our relationship with humanitarian charity Action Against Hunger began in August 2007. Inspired and moved by the hard work undertaken by the charity, we have decided to support their efforts to help families in over 40 of the world's poorest countries feed their children and build a sustainable future.

To date, over £380,000 has been raised to help their projects.

Visiting the projects supported by Carluccio’s in Liberia

In early May Neil Pangbourne, our logistics manager, and I had the opportunity to travel to Monrovia the capital of Liberia in West Africa to see the Action Against Hunger Projects where the money we are raising from Penne Giardinera sales is being spent.

Liberia was a wealthy country in the 1960s and 1970s helped by natural resources of diamonds and rubber, but years of political strife and civil war have destroyed infrastructure and displaced millions of people. Monrovia a city who's population has doubled in just a few years to 900,000 (the size of Birmingham) has no electricity, no running water and wholly inadequate sanitation, 85% of the people are unemployed and life expectancy is only 45 years.

Despite this awful and frightening backdrop our money is delivering results. We saw the children's feeding centre which cares for 120 mothers and their severely malnourished babies. There we met emaciated babies who would die without access to the clinic and a wonderful 18 month old boy called Maddison, cured with our help a few months ago and now a bouncy and very cheeky young man.

We visited the slum town of Westpoint to meet people living in the worst imaginable conditions there joining Ernesto, a social worker who we support, and his group of teenage mothers who simply have no idea how to care for their children. Children who without Ernesto's and our support could simply fade away.

Simon Kossoff
Carluccio’s Managing Director