318 posts categorized "Global Hunger"

One of the many New York trees uprooted during Hurrican Sandy on Nov. 4, 2012. (USDA photo by Dave Kosling)

By Christine Melendez Ashley and Faustine Wabwire

Bread for the World’s efforts to create a circle of protection and push Congress to reduce our deficits in a responsible manner are critical to ensuring vulnerable people affected by natural disasters at home and abroad have the support they need. These programs continue to be at risk as Congress works to craft a farm bill and a deficit reduction package.

In the past year, Bread has worked to protect and strengthen domestic nutrition programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly food stamps) and child nutrition programs. These programs have provided quick and substantial help to New York, New Jersey, and other affected states in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. For example:

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) rushed emergency food to affected areas for distribution through food banks and emergency food channels.

• USDA has authorized 13 affected states to issue replacement SNAP benefits for food purchased and lost in the month of October. They also authorized an extra two weeks of benefits for everyone on SNAP in and around New York City—a benefit totaling $65 million.

•  Some of the worst affected states have also been authorized to allow SNAP recipients to purchase hot, ready-to-eat foods. This is not allowed under normal SNAP rules.

• USDA approved free school lunches for all children in New York public school districts for the month of November.

Bread has also been a strong advocate for effective foreign assistance programs and international food aid. In the last several years, Bread has pushed for robust funding of these programs. Hurricane relief efforts abroad are being carried out through foreign assistance programs at USAID. For example:

• USAID has provided 50 metric tons of food aid to Haiti to help address food insecurity concerns.

•  USAID has distributed plastic sheeting to help approximately 10,000 people, family hygiene kits have helped nearly 12,500 people, and an estimated 6,400 blankets.

•  USAID has also provided items such as wheelbarrows and tools helpful for clean-up to displacement camps most affected by Hurricane Sandy.

In the last two years, Congress has introduced proposals to decimate these programs. Despite these threats, Bread has pushed back and prevented these proposals from becoming law, thus enabling these programs to respond quickly and effectively to dramatic need. As Congress works to avoid the “fiscal cliff” and negotiate a budget deal, we must continue to push for a circle of protection around programs that effectively serve the most vulnerable in the United States and around the world.

Christine Melendez Ashley is a policy analyst in Bread for the World's government relations department.

Faustine Wabwire is Bread for the World Institute's foreign assistance policy analyst.

By David Beckmann 

The 2012 elections are over. Whether your candidates won or lost, we are very thankful to you for raising hunger and poverty as campaign issues.

More than 120,000 of you viewed two video statements in which the presidential candidates explained what they would do to give opportunity to hungry and poor people. With your help, we raised the issues of hunger and poverty, at home and abroad, in the elections.

Now, please join us in asking President Obama to set a goal and work with Congress to enact a plan to end hunger.

The next few months are crucial. The president and Congress must address issues such as the farm bill, expiration of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, and the 2013 federal budget.  They also must agree on a balanced approach to deficit reduction. 

In the coming weeks we will have several key opportunities to remind our members of Congress not to balance the federal budget on the backs of hungry and poor people, and to instead create a circle of protection around programs vital to hungry and poor people.

Please join us in praying for President Obama and members of Congress.

David Beckmann is president of Bread for the World.

Take action! Watch President Obama's video statement and send him a letter asking that he set a goal and work with Congress to enact a plan to end hunger.

You can also contact the president on Twitter, using the sample tweets below:

.@BarackObama set a goal to #endhunger & work with Congress in assuring a place at the table for hungry & poor people. http://ow.ly/f5Scz

Don’t forget your promise to do your part to protect vital assistance for the least of these @BarackObama http://ow.ly/f5Scz #talkpoverty

Why, in a world with an abundance of food, are so many hungry? How is it possible that those with access to food can still be at risk of malnutrition?

On World Food Day, Asma Lateef, director of Bread for the World Institute, appeared on Voice of America's "In Focus" program to talk about these issues and the continuing fight against global hunger and malnutrition.

Lateef discussed the recent United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) "The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2012" report, which shows that great progress has been made in reducing hunger over the last two decades. She also talked about farming cooperatives (the focus of World Food Day 2012), the need to improve nutrition, and the ways in which those two issues are linked.

"As we think about building on the progress we've made against hunger over the last few decades, [we should be] thinking about integrating programs so that you are increasing farmer income, and also improving nutrition at the same time."

Watch the video and read Lateef's blog post on the progress that has been made in eradicating global hunger, and the work ahead.

Photo: Jane Sebbi, left, is a farmer with 12 acres of land in Kamuli, Uganda. Small-scale farmers, and the cooperatives that support them, are the focus of World Food Day 2012.(Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World)

Fisherman in the Moroccan village of Dikky, near the Gibraltar Strait, once struggled to make ends meet, due to the seasonal nature of their trade. After uniting as a cooperative, however, the fisherman were able to cut costs, by buying fuel and bait as a group, and receive government support in the form of equipment and instruction in honey production. As part of a special U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) project, the men were trained in beekeeping, a supplemental skill that sustained them during fishing's off-season.  

Cooperatives, like the one at Dikky, are the focus of World Food Day 2012, which is observed on October 16. Every year on this day, organizations and individuals around the world work to raise awareness of global hunger and strengthen the political will to eradicate it.  

The 2012 theme "Agricultural Cooperatives: Key to Feeding the World" highlights the role of cooperatives that support smallholder farmers in addressing world hunger. According to FAO figures, smallholder farmers will provide much of the extra food needed to feed more than nine billion people by 2050. 

Events taking place in recognition of World Food Day are happening across the country and around the world today, and include everything from action events, such as food packaging drives and World Food Day dinners, to opportunities to hang out with celebrity chefs as they cook and talk nutrition.

Even if you're not able to participate in any World Food Day activities in person, take a few minutes to watch the video below, and learn more about the fishing cooperative in Dikky, and similar collectives that are contributing to hunger and poverty reduction.

Photo: Ninth grade student Abby reads her essay on poverty-focused development assistance to Karen Kunze, South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson's staffer on foreign operations. (Courtesy of South Dakota Bread for the World)

By Robin Stephenson

Last week, Bread members in South Dakota met with local and D.C.-based staff of Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) to discuss poverty-focused development assistance. Senator Johnson sits on a key committee—appropriations—which sets vital funding for programs that provide long-term poverty-reducing strategies abroad. Poverty-focused aid makes up less than one percent of the federal budget and must be approved by Congress each year in the appropriations process. The Senate FY13 appropriations-funded programs are critical to ending poverty abroad, and South Dakota Bread members asked Sen. Johnson to protect those proposed levels in any future budget negotiations.

Staff Assistant Bret Hoffman met the group of 10 Bread members at the senator's Sioux Falls office. When Bread member Cathy Brechtelsbauer called to schedule the meeting she asked if the office could teleconference with the Washington D.C., legislative assistant, Karen Kunze, who deals directly with foreign aid. Many local offices are equipped to conference with D.C. By conferencing, constituents can talk directly to key staff members about the issues they work on. This method of communication gets the right information to the right people.

The advocacy team included a ninth grader named Abby, who won last year’s Human Rights Day essay contest, which Bread for the World South Dakota sponsored.  Abby read aloud her essay, which  pointed out the fact that $1.3 billion people live on no more than $1.25 a day and that agriculture is an essential part of the solution to poverty. Staff Assistant Hoffman appreciated Abby’s grasp of the interrelation between poverty and human rights.

Others Bread activists shared stories, as well. A college student who has seen farmers struggling in Nicaragua emphasized the importance of simple but critical inputs, such as food storage systems, that increase agricultural productivity. A farmer returning from a mission trip to Haiti spoke about the importance of Feed the Future as a program that is not a handout but a hand up, lifting communities into a cycle of prosperity. And a doctor talked about working in Ethiopian clinics using the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to save lives.

Before leaving, Bread members asked what kind of support the group could provide to Sen. Johnson. Kunze encouraged the group to continue to educate others in their community about poverty-focused development assistance, and how such a small portion of the federal budget does so much good.

Robin Stephenson is social media lead/senior regional organizer, western hub.

Photo: A street vendor selling vegetables in Vietnam. (Robin Stephenson/Bread for the World)

By Robin Stephenson

On Fridays, Bread Blog will highlight an activity, for either adults or children, that can be used by Christian educators. This activity, and others like it, can be found in the Engaging Church section of Bread’s website.

If you have ever been to a hunger banquet, you probably know that participation in one of these events often results in an “aha” moment around the issues of global hunger and food disparity. 

At a hunger banquet, a group of people share a meal, but the quality and quantity of the food and water varies. The meal that you eat is determined at random.

We are often presented with grim statistics about hunger. We hear that 925 million people face their days hungry, and are floored by that figure. But how can those who live in abundance even begin to grasp what that statistic really means? Attending a hunger banquet gives attendees at least a sense of how large the global food gap truly is.

My first hunger banquet was on a college campus. The hosts separated us into three groups.  The group representing the developed world ate large portions of protein, vegetables, and rice—a typical American meal. This group sat at a table and used flatware. Needless to say, there were only a few people in this group. The middle income group sat at a smaller table with few aesthetic details. Food was basic, but nourishing—a meal of rice and beans and clean water to drink.  There were more people at this table. The largest group sat on the floor with only one small bowl of rice per person, and no utensils or clean water.  This is how the majority of the world lives. 

I sat at the fancy table, but I could hardly eat my meal. I thought to myself, why in a world of so much do so many go without?  How did I get so lucky to be born into such abundance? 

I thought of the scripture Luke 12:48:

"From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”

It can be difficult for instructors to convey the concepts of abundance and scarcity in the world during a 45-minute Sunday school class or youth group. In the "Make Hunger History" curriculum there is an exercise that sparks a conversation using M&Ms. "Getting A Fair Share:  A Distribution Exercise" targets grades 7 through 9 and goes beyond just visuals and statistics and asks students to think about the root causes of hunger. 

Photo: Schoolchildren in Malawi. (Racine Tucker-Hamilton/Bread for the World)

By Racine Tucker-Hamilton

As a woman who is the mother of two sons, I’m often torn between my strong belief in empowering women and girls and raising boys. My personal conflict was very evident last week while attending the Social Good Summit (SGS).

Many of the sessions focused specifically on females: "Women Editors Take on the Intersection of Print, Digital and Social Good," "Connecting Girls Around the World," and "Women, Social Media and an End to Poverty.

As I was sitting through these sessions I kept thinking, where are boys and men in these conversations? Then finally, America Ferrera, an actress, producer, and activist, brought it up. She and fellow actress Alexis Bledel had recently returned from a trip to Honduras where they learned how women and girls are improving nutrition and fighting poverty in developing countries. The trip was organized by the ONE campaign and captured in this video.

Ferrera was a guest on the SGS panel "Women, Social Media and an End to Poverty." She told the audience that, in her experience, investing in women and girls doesn’t mean leaving boys behind.

“From what we saw [in Latin America], boys are raised by their mothers and the mothers will see that those boys have education and a different outlook toward women’s roles in society,” said Ferrera.

Her comments reminded me of my visit to a southern Malawi village last year, where I saw men playing an important role in improving nutrition for women and children. Kennedy Mbereko is one of those men. He’s well known in the Jombo village, where he serves as a member of a care group for a Catholic Relief Services project called Wellness and Agriculture for Life Advancement (WALA). Kennedy visits the homes of malnourished children and then documents their progress and growth.

While his notes and journals are central to his job, his presence alone makes a difference in a community where nutrition may be viewed as a ‘women’s-only issue.’ Mbereko is helping to break down barriers and engage other men in the area—including the village leader—around the issue of malnutrition.  

During Ferrera's panel discussion at the SGS, she also told the audience that we need more men to embrace and support the issues of improving nutrition and ending poverty in their communities.

“We need enlightened men to help change the minds of men who may not see the important role that women play in poverty eradication.”

There’s no question that women and girls must be at the table when determining the best ways to combat malnutrition and poverty, but we have to remember to save a seat for boys and men.

Racine Tucker-Hamilton is Bread for the World's media relations manager.

On Fridays, Bread Blog will highlight an activity, for either adults or children, that can be used by Christian educators. This activity, and others like it, can be found in the Engaging Church section of Bread’s website.

In the "Is There Enough for Everyone?" activity, students are encouraged to work together to share increasingly scarce resources. This activity, which is appropriate for younger students, is designed to foster discussion about sharing and how people treat one another.

The children start by playing a traditional game of musical chairs—one chair and one student are eliminated each time the music is stopped. The children then play a second round of musical chairs, during which a chair is removed each time the music stops, but all students continue playing. As the game progresses, more and more people must find a way to sit on fewer and fewer chairs until, finally, everyone must sit on one remaining chair.

Once the commotion dies down, ask everyone to sit down, and think about how they acted toward one another in each of the games: How did it feel to have enough chairs, and then to slowly lose them until there wasn’t enough room for everyone? What would it be like if this was the amount of food you had to eat, instead of the number of chairs you had to sit on? How would this affect your life?

After the discussion, the activity ends with a prayer about sharing:

Read the entire "Is There Enough for Everyone" lesson plan from Bread for the World's "Making Hunger History" children's curriculum for more details. If you're interested in addressing the same general topic with teenagers or adults, consider a book group discussion of Bread for the World founder Art Simon's How Much Is Enough?

When famed statisitician Hans Rosling presented UNICEF child mortality numbers at the Social Good Summit in New York on Monday, he said the figures are among "the most serious statistics we have, as well as the most motivating." The child mortality rate has improved dramatically over the last 20 years, but 19,000 children around the world still die each day. Who can hear that and not feel compelled to act? 

The Social Good Summit, a three-day conference held during UN Week and sponsored by Mashable, the UN Foundation, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundtion, examined how social media can be used to solve our greatest global challenges. One of the most interesting things about the summit was the widespread sharing of statistics about hunger, poverty, education, public health, and foreign aid across various social media platforms.

Some of the data was sobering, other figures were inspiring, but all of the numbers should serve as motivation to continue the fight to help the world's poor and hungry people. As Rosling said, "The world is getting better, but is not yet good."

Photo: Martha Togdbba of Kpaytno, Liberia, grows vegetables, including tomatoes and chili peppers. (Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World)

By Kristen Y. Archer

Rarely do Bread for the World’s issues converge so seamlessly with legislative priorities as they did at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 42nd Annual Legislative Conference (ALC) in Washington, DC, last week. Bread’s African-American Voices for Africa initiative stood out as particularly relevant to legislative decisions currently on the table.

Rev. Derrick Boykin, who leads the initiative, spoke at the Emerging Leaders Instant Apprentice Luncheon on Thursday, Sept. 20. At the event, Derrick addressed the need for courageous African-American leaders to advocate for and shape U.S. poverty-focused development assistance to effectively reduce hunger and poverty in Africa. From Derrick’s perspective, Bread and the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) share a mutual interest in promoting a prosperous Africa.

The leadership of the CBC is essential to raising the issues of poverty in Africa to a level of global importance. Through congress members such as the late Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ) and now Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), African issues and concerns have been brought to the forefront within the caucus.

This was evident in the 2012 Africa Braintrust session convened by Rep. Bass on Friday. Derrick, Bread’s racial and ethnic outreach associate Bishop Don Williams, and I attended the event, which was titled “Africa Rising: A Continent of Opportunity.” During the first panel discussion, “Africa’s Growing Economy,” we heard from Ambassador Tebelelo Seretse of Botswana, who emphasized that African nations are now focused on “trade, not aid.” In other words, countries making investments in African development should direct funds toward business, commerce, trade, and agriculture—areas that offer longer-term sustainability than does aid offered only during times of crises.

This is, of course, consistent with Bread’s 2011 Offering of Letters campaign, in which we pushed for more effective U.S. foreign assistance in reducing global poverty.