While most organisations involved in tackling disease in the developing world are focused on treatment, there is one Israeli NGO with a different approach, one they say is essential for sustainability.

Neglected Tropical Diseases Advocacy, Learning and Action (NALA), established in 2011 by Professor Zvi Bentwich, the great grandson of British-Zionist leader Herbert Bentwich, believes that prevention is better than cure.

Working across several nations in the Horn of Africa, primarily Ethiopia, the group employs 70 experts who educate civilians, local councils, and regional and national governments on how to halt the spread of preventable diseases.

In an interview with the JC, CEO Michal Bruck explained how they work and how, in one Ethiopian town under their guidance, a debilitating parasite which affected nearly all of the children there was reduced to impacting fewer than one in ten.

Bruck said: “While other organisations focus on treatment... we are doing it the other way around. We are saying that if we focus on preventing those diseases, we will reduce suffering, save resources, and have a much more sustainable impact.

“Usually, within five years of working in a district, we are able to reduce the disease prevalence by almost 90 per cent/

“Take the town of Mizan Amon in Southwestern Ethiopia. The Ministry of Health mapped disease prevalence in 2014, and it was 83 per cent of the children. They had parasites in their stomachs.

“These parasites would cause anaemia, problems in physical development and cognitive development and would stunt their growth.”

It wasn’t only the health woes that NALA was worried about – it was the effect illness was having on the children’s education.

Citing a major African study, Bruck said: “Getting rid of the parasites would be the most effective [way of keeping] children in schools... so it is not only about health - it is also about education and sustaining it for the future.”

The main parasite infecting the children in Mizan Amon came from the polluted river, but NALA found that the townspeople had no access to any source of clean drinking water. "There is no alternative," she explained.

“Our experts went in and showed them how to use the river in a safer manner, how to reduce exposure to the disease, and at the same time, we tried to come up with alternative ways of collecting [such as digging wells].”

‍Inside the Israeli NGO Tackling Preventable Disease in Africa... Continue reading

This article was originally published in The Jewish Chronicle on Feburary 10, 2026.