The World on a Shoestring

These facts are nothing short of shocking. Here we are, living happy, healthy lives with food on our plates every single day, whilst for a seventh – a seventh!- of the world population this isn’t the case. Why should we care? Because we can. Because we are somehow able to help, it is our duty as human beings to do so. Because we’re young and free and have the necessary motivation within us, we should all take advantage of it while it lasts.

Young people can join the fight against hunger in a multitude of ways, ranging from volunteering in local homeless shelters, to participating and fundraising for existing initiatives and to spreading the word at college and university campuses. Personally, I have for the past few years been fundraising for the WFP’s Fill the Cup campaign through the LSE’s United Nations society. More recently, I have started volunteering with an NGO in central London that collects unsold food from shops and distributes it out to homeless people every evening, whilst this past week, as part of my online internship, I have challenged my online community to skip a meal and donate all proceedings to the WFP’s WeFeedback initiative. There are so many initiatives out there for you to get involved in, so many projects to sponsor, so many organisations to volunteer with, that the problem you are faced with primarily should be one of choice.

You may initially be put off by the fact that you feel you can’t make a difference… it’s only natural - in a world of 7 billion, what impact could you potentially have? Each time someone mentions that argument, there’s this one quote by the Dalai Lama that crops up in my head: “If you think you’re too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito in the room”. It’s true - everyone can make a difference, everyone can join the fight for a hunger-free world, no matter how small and how insignificant you think you may be in the grand scale of things.

Some people may also say that the fight for a world free of hunger is ‘pointless’, that famine may actually not have a solution - maybe this is the way the world is meant to be, maybe this is the natural course of things, maybe this is simple economics, maybe there isn’t anything we can do - thankfully, there is. The solutions are out there and available. We have the knowledge, the science and technology to do it and contrarily to popular belief, it has been proven that there is enough food in the world to feed everyone and ensure everyone has access to enough nutrients to live healthy, productive lifestyles.

So go out there, step outside your comfort zone, search your university campus, speak to your high school teachers, google everything you can possibly ever think of in the hunger milieu and I guarantee that you’ll be able to find a channel through which you can redirect your energy and help, in some way, fight for a world free from hunger.

Good luck.

Written by Joana Santos, WFP Online Intern - November 2011

Published online at http://www.wfp.org/students-and-teachers/universities/blog/why-should-we-care

1. Because basic nutrition is identified under Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an integral right of every human being, yet hunger rates have been slowly (but steadily) rising over the past decade;
2. Because there is enough food in the world to feed everyone and ensure citizens live a healthy and productive lifestyle, yet currently roughly 925 million people worldwide suffer from undernourishment and malnutrition;
3. Because hunger is the number one global risk to health, killing more people annually than malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis combined;
4. Because, contrary to popular belief, hunger and malnutrition are not merely ‘third-world issues’ – in the US, for instance, one in every seven households was categorised in the past year as “food insecure”;
5. Because we can. We are fortunate enough to have food in our plates every single day, whilst it is estimated that one in every seven people in the world go to bed hungry every night. Because we are somehow ABLE to help, it is our duty as human beings to do so. Young people can help fight hunger in a multitude of ways, ranging from volunteering in local homeless shelters, to supporting related initiatives such as WFP’s wefeedback programme or the Fill-the-cup campaign, to spreading the world at college and university campuses. Be spontaneous, be creative and, most importantly, don’t give up!

Written by Joana Santos, WFP Online Intern - November 2011

Published online at http://www.wfp.org/students-and-teachers/universities/blog/why-you-should-care-about-hunger

WeFeedback’s mission is to enlist your help and the help of your social networks in the fight against the chronic hunger that burdens families all over the world.

How it works

It’s easy: You choose your favorite food (or the food of whatever meal you’ve decided to miss, if you’re taking part in my Online Challenge) put it into the Feedback Calculator along with the estimated cost, and then calculate how many hungry children this would feed. The next step is to donate exactly that amount. Or, if you want, you donate multiples of that amount. In this way you feedback more portions of your favorite food.

At this point you are already a member of the WeFeedback community. But in order to participate fully, there is another step: share details of your favorite food and your feedback with others. You can do this through your networks, if you ask them to join WeFeedback. They then ask their networks and before you know it, we have thousands of people like you using their networking skills to raise awareness for a great cause.

The power of food

We’re taking a new approach to fighting hunger that is social, fun and focused on the positive. We believe food is an amazing force: It is a giver of life, a canvas for creativity and a catalyst for our social lives. If together we can harness the exuberance, creativity and sense of identity people associate with food, we can tap into a powerful positive force for change.

WeFeedback is a social media initiative of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the world’s largest humanitarian organization. Each year, WFP brings food to millions of people so they can move on with their lives, receive an education, find employment and create a better life for their families.

WeFeedback is the latest addition to WFP’s ongoing Billion for a Billion movement.

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To donate via my personal page, visit http://wefeedback.org/calculator?hash=cYAQp. 

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) was established in 1963 with the mission to provide food aid to:

1) Save lives in refugee and other emergency situations;

2) Improve the nutrition and quality of life of the most vulnerable people at critical times in their lives:

3) Help build assets and promote the self-reliance of poor people and communities, particularly through labour intensive works programs.

90 million people

Over the years, WFP has grown to be the world’s largest provider of humanitarian aid. WFP provides food to more than 90 million people a year (58 million of whom are children). Whether it’s rapid response to natural disasters, providing relief to the victims of war or drought, or putting communities to work to solve their own food needs, WFP is there. In fact 90% of WFP’s 10,000 employees work in the field directly assisting those in need.

Two-fold impact

Around 80% of WFP food assistance is bought in the developing world and about a third is purchased in the very country where it is needed. In these situations, our impact is two-fold. Hungry people benefit from being fed, of course, but also those that are producing the food are finding a market for their goods, which helps support and build the local economies.

WFP is funded solely by donations from world governments, corporations and private donors. All donations are voluntary, and we are proud to say that more than 90% of every dollar donated is spent on food or the costs associated with getting it to the hungry. In fact, WFP’s administrative costs are among the lowest of all global aid agencies.

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To donate to the WeFeedback initiative via my personal page, please visit http://wefeedback.org/calculator?hash=cYAQp.