Reflections On A Lifetime of Service

Five years since retiring from Catholic Relief Services, Hannah Evans Lutterodt looks back with fondness at the 30 years she contributed to the agency in her native Ghana. As the nation celebrates its 50th anniversary of independence this month, Hanna's history overlaps not only with CRS' presence in Ghana, but also with that of the nation itself — a history that, for Hannah, has been marked by service to others.

In 1956, at age 21, Hannah received a scholarship to study in the United States. When she returned four years later, Ghana had become the first sub-Saharan country in Africa to gain independence. Eager to apply her foods and nutrition degree to help those less fortunate, Hannah took a job with Ghana's Ministry of Health, where she collected data on the high rates of malnutrition that affected parts of Ghana's arid north. Eventually, she taught mothers about nutrition and how to supplement what food they had to care better for their babies.

"CRS at the time was starting to move into more malnutrition-specific work, as opposed to general food aid," Hannah says. Hired full-time in 1972, Hannah began a 30-year career with the agency that was to see her become head of programs for CRS in Ghana. It was, she recalls, a rewarding experience from the outset.

"This position took me everywhere," Hannah explains. "Traveling all over the country and getting the materials that you needed to do the work," something that was not often possible while working with the cash-strapped health ministry.

As CRS worked largely with food, Hannah sought ways to link CRS' resources with the needs of the Ministry of Health, to reach as many people as possible.

"I went to the ministry and explained that we had food supplements that we could provide to the mothers of malnourished children," Hannah says. She worked to link the milk powder and bulgur wheat supplies CRS was then distributing to ministry efforts to reach the most impoverished areas. It was during this period of growing partnership that CRS also introduced child growth charts to the ministry, allowing health officials to easily chart the growth of malnourished children to better tailor their feeding treatment. Today, such charts are a mainstay of every malnutrition monitoring program.

'Something to Help'

Linking health with nutrition, Hannah also worked with other CRS staff to provide nursing care to community-based clinics, traveling around the countryside to visit clinics where mothers often waited days with ill children to be seen by a nurse. The need, at times, was overwhelming for a staff of just one or two people.

"Sometimes it was just one nurse and me," Hannah says. "We would even involve the drivers. They were weighing babies all over the place!"

But if the work she did with CRS in the early years was often intensive, it also bore dividends that continue to be seen today in Ghana. Using food and clinical support gave children the best chances in impoverished rural areas. Those same children were then able to receive lunches in school, providing not only a nutritional boost, but also the chance to continue their education.

"You meet many people [in Ghana] who say, 'Without CRS I would never have gone to school,' and to me that is a great tribute to this program," Hannah says.

Maintaining political and economic stability, Ghana is a country of promise and has become an example for other countries in the region.

Today, as CRS begins to phase out its food aid programs, which reach 360,000 people, the agency has a sense of confidence in the capacity of the Ghanaian government to continue this important work. By September 2008, schoolchildren will receive meals through the Ghana National School Feeding program, which is poised to continue and expand food aid initiatives.

CRS will continue other pertinent aid projects in Ghana aimed at helping those most in need, from water and sanitation projects and support for people living with HIV and AIDS, to conflict resolution projects that seek to diffuse conflicts before they turn violent.

Over her career with CRS, Hannah has seen many changes both within the agency, and within the country. Looking back on her many years of service through CRS to the people of Ghana, Hannah is humble about her choice of careers.

"I realized there was big need out there," Hannah says, "and I could do something to help."