Unite for Hunger and Hope

What is Hunger?

Hunger is more than just an empty stomach. This phrase had the most impact on me while I was browsing the World Food Programme website. This is my blogpost for the Blogger's Unite event for World Hunger: Unite for Hunger and Hope.

I learned from the site that hunger occurs in places hit most recently by natural disasters and war and yet these only account for 8% of the world's hunger. So what does the other 92% account for? Daily undernourishment is much more a leading factor especially in places overrun with poverty.

A person needs to have at least the recommended 2,100 calories to lead a healthy life, these unfortunate people have less. To compensate for the lack of nourishment, their bodies slow down in terms of physical and mental capacities. To quote: "A hungry mind cannot concentrate, a hungry body does not take initiative, a hungry child loses all desire to play and study."

Since they are deprived of nutrition, their immune systems are considerably weak and they are very vulnerable to infections and diseases like diarrhea and measles. Each year, almost 11M children die before reaching the age of five with malnutrition associated with 53% of these deaths. (very alarming numbers) Hunger and malnutrition is a health risk more than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

Most of the world’s hungry live in developing countries. According to the latest Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 2008 statistics, there are 963 million hungry people in the world and 907 million of them are in developing countries.  They are distributed like this:

565 million in Asia and the Pacific

230 million in Sub-Saharan Africa

58.4 million in Latin America and the Caribbean

41.6 million in the Near East and North Africa

What can we do to help?

Fill the cup

Monetary donations are most welcome. This campaign aims to gather enough change to fill one red cup..with the ratio of one full red cup feeding a child for a year. You can make donations here.

Free Rice

I read about this, in one of the issues of Reader's Digest last year and I immediately tried it out. It's an online game where the sponsors promise to give 10 grains of rice for each correct answer that a player gains. The longer you play and the more correct answers you put in, the more you donate rice. Try this out, it's mostly a vocabulary game..so you get to learn and help out. Play here.

Food Force

This is a video game which aims to teach children and adults alike about world hunger. You are given several missions to complete, with objectives concerning efforts on ending world hunger. It is set in a format that is patterned to teach kids while they're having fun. Play here.

Spread the Word

There are several banners and badges available on the website that you can put on your blog. These can help spread awareness. If you care, please do put a badge on your site. You can get the badges here.

There are also several walkathons which aim to raise funds to feed the hungry. These programs are usually sponsored by participating companies and are practiced in over 200 countries.

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I hope this blog post helped raise awareness concerning world hunger. Please do your part now and help. For more information, check out the World Food Programme website.

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