Freedom from Hunger Day 2008 - Sept. 25 to 28
In the midst of all the clamor surrounding the U.S. presidential election, the usual political machinations of world powers and the tantalizing suspense of reality TV contest shows, it’s easy to forget that there is a dramatic and calamitous crisis occurring right now that threatens to push 100 million more people into the grip of chronic hunger and poverty.
The Global Food Crisis, in which food prices has soared out of the realm of affordability for hundreds of thousands of people, has been described as a perfect storm and a “silent tsunami,” but there is an important difference between it and those two analogies. The Global Food Crisis, while certainly multifacotrial, is at least partly caused by humans. If we can break it, we can fix it. With the fate of literally millions in the balance, it is imperative that we do so.
This weekend marks Freedom from Hunger Day, an officially recognized observance of the worrisome level of poverty in the world and the laudable efforts of those who are combating it. I feel like this time is also an opportunity for us to pause for a moment to think about the current situation in the world. In comparison to the petty annoyances of daily life, it is sobering to imagine the lives of the 2 billion people that lives on less than $2 a day and all those in peril of slipping down into extreme poverty and chronic hunger. Freedom from Hunger Day provides an easy way to learn more about the situation and a way to take a positive action to help those in need.
Freedom from Hunger, the organization I recently started working at, has been fighting to eradicate chronic hunger for over 60 years. I think that their interventions have become all the more crucial in the face of this crisis. The president of Freedom from Hunger, Dr. Chris Dunford, has written cogently on the situation. Freedom from Hunger has reached over a million women with their lifesaving programs that allow families to sustainably help themselves out of poverty. Their most powerful and proven weapon so far has been the Credit with Education model which they pioneered some twenty years ago. As an organization that constantly seeks to innovate and to reach further with those innovations, Freedom from Hunger has developed a number of other programs that are now bringing a chance for a healthy, productive lives to poor women around the globe.
I urge you to visit Freedom from Hunger in the coming days and participate in Freedom from Hunger Day. If you have comments about the Global Hunger Crisis or Freedom from Hunger, I’d welcome starting a conversation here.
