Professor Jeff Hillard’s English class at Mount St. Joseph University had a special visitor this past Saturday, coming from Egypt!
Dina El-Kassaby, a communications officer with the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), spoke to the class via Skype. The WFP is the largest global hunger relief organization.
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We have seen the heartbreaking images of Syrians in desperate attempts to flee their war-torn homeland. All they want is to find safety in Europe, away from the conflict in the Middle East.
Thousands of Syrians each day are making this dangerous journey. They are tired, scared and hungry. What should the international community do? Start welcoming them.
See the full commentary at The Huffington Post.
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The United Nations, in a report released yesterday, says a key Yemeni port has sustained severe damage, preventing food deliveries for potentially millions. This is the latest blow to strike Yemen, a country spiraling toward famine because of a civil war.
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The United States is deploying warplanes to Turkey to step up the fight against the Islamic State in Syria. But we cannot forget the other enemy Syrians are facing — hunger. This may be the most powerful foe of all.
The UN World Food Programme, or WFP, feeds around 4 million people inside Syria each month, but many civilians are still starving. They are trapped by the ongoing civil war, which has destroyed food production and farming.
Read the full article at The Boston Globe.
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As Syrian refugees face increasing hunger, we can find inspiration from Egypt’s own history to meet this humanitarian emergency. It was April 1946, when the former United States president Herbert Hoover came to Cairo on an urgent mission.
Famine threatened the globe. President Harry Truman dispatched Hoover as a food ambassador. His goal was to find food supplies that could …
Read the full article at Daily News Egypt
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We, the international community, must speak out for the people left starving by Syria’s civil war. All across Syria, civilians are routinely being blocked from receiving the food needed to survive. The world cannot turn its back on these innocent war victims.
One scene of this ongoing tragedy in Syria is Yarmouk and the nearby towns of Yalda, Babila and Beit Saham. They all need life-saving food right away. Years of civil war has ruined food supplies for this area.
Read the full article at The Huffington Post.
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The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said today that food rations have been reduced for Iraqi war victims. Facing low funding, WFP had no choice but to cut back on the food supplied to the displaced Iraqis.
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Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) yesterday announced co-sponsorship of the Hunger Free Summer for Kids Act. This legislation would tackle the massive summer feeding crisis in America.
During the school year, low-income children receive free lunches from the federal government. However, when summer comes and schools are closed, these same children often miss out on that daily meal. There are a lack of feeding sites to make up for the school cafeterias being closed.
Senator Brown says, “Summer break shouldn’t mean a break from good nutrition. Summer meal programs provide the nutrition assistance for children that they would normally receive in school, ensuring their healthy development and easing the burden on their families.” The Hunger Free Summer for Kids Act, if given enough support, could be passed in the Child Nutrition legislation in the coming weeks.
According to Feeding America, 82% of children who receive the school lunches during the year do not get them during the summer. The summer months become a time when hunger escalates among children. The Hunger Free Summer for Kids Act aims to stop this.
One remedy the bill has put forward is providing needy families an electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card during the summer months. This would provide 30 dollars a month per child so the family can purchase extra food to make up for the lost school lunches. This would help children who cannot get to summer feeding sites.
While there are efforts to increase the number of summer feeding sites, they cannot possibly make up the difference. According to Feeding America, there are 9 million low-income children who live in areas that are ineligible to have summer feeding sites. So clearly an EBT card would be vital to them.
Feeding America is calling on its supporters to contact their representatives in support of the bill. So far there has been bipartisan support. Senators John Boozman (R-AR), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN) have joined Brown in support of the Hunger Free Summer for Kids Act. An advocacy page has been set up by Feeding America.
Read the full article at Examiner.
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A program started by President Dwight Eisenhower is a lifeline today for Syria’s war victims. The U.S. Food for Peace initiative is feeding millions of hungry Syrians affected by the brutal civil war.
Last week, Food for Peace made a $65 million donation through the UN World Food Programme (WFP) for Syria. It came just in the nick of time. WFP was about to cut its food aid to Syrian refugees because of low funds. Even with the donation, WFP still cannot restore full rations, showing how much more needs to be done.
Read the full article at The Huffington Post.
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When a UN World Food Programme (WFP) vessel recently docked in Aden, Yemen it came with a life-saving food item for children. The war in Yemen has placed children at risk of deadly malnutrition.
Read the full article at Examiner.
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Author William Lambers 