Issues: World Hunger Mbale Food Bank 2sm.JPG Of the 870 million people suffering from chronic hunger, 98 percent live in the developing world. Unlike famines that receive emergency-aid, chronic hunger is a silent, invisible, day-after-day condition. Hunger, poverty and food prices are inextricably linked. Not every poor person is hungry, but almost all hungry people are poor. Millions live with hunger and malnourishment because they simply cannot afford to buy enough food, cannot afford nutritious foods or cannot afford the farming supplies they need to grow enough good food of their own. Hunger can be viewed as a dimension of extreme poverty. It is often called the most severe and critical manifestation of poverty. The only way for people to move beyond chronic hunger and their vulnerability to ever-rising food prices is to employ sustainable methods based on self-reliance. The Hunger Project (THP) works to empower rural communities in strengthening their self-reliance in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, where the highest concentrations of hungry people live. Among other methods, THP provides the tools and training to increase farm production at the local level; empowers partners to create, stock and manage their own food banks; and encourages clusters of rural villages to develop sustainable, self-reliant, hunger-free communities. What We Do Empower people to create, stock and manage their own food banks at the community level. In Africa, THP epicenter food banks provide storage for excess harvest and ensure the food security of our partners during off-seasons. In 2010 alone, community members stocked 482,040 kilograms of grains in food banks. Develop income-generating activities. Trained THP partners implement income-generating activities: from sewing projects in Mexico to cow-fattening projects in Bangladesh. This enables the women and men of these communities to increase their incomes, so that they can purchase the food they need. Promote sustainable farming practices. Local agricultural experts teach THP partners how to create and manage community farms. Villagers learn techniques to sustainably improve crop yields, providing entire communities with increased access to food. Ensure access to microfinance. Our Microfinance Program trains and empowers villagers, with a special focus on women food farmers, who grow 80 percent of the household food in sub-Saharan Africa. Partners learn how to increase their incomes and use their savings to improve the health, education and nutrition of their families. As of the end of 2010, 45,000 women and men were participating in our Microfinance Program.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Jul 2013 12:35:15 +0000
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