Santa Fe Living Treasures – Elder Stories

In 1955 she went to Shiraz, Iran to "set up the dietary department" in a brand new hospital. The Shah and Queen Soraya attended opening ceremonies.

Blindness caused by severe vitamin A deficiency, and kwashiorkor—children's failure to thrive due to lack of proteins—were the conditions Viola discovered in east Africa in the early 1960s. The only non-African on a UN/ FAO team, she raised the alarm with key government officials from Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania and Sierra Leone. The Tanzanians offered her a job, but by then she was committed to a survey of food consumption in India's villages, phase one of an FAO/UNICEF effort to rescue children from malnutrition and hunger.