October 18, 2011 · 2:06 am

WFP Director Warns of Hunger Threat Stalking Yemen

During her keynote address at the 25th anniversary of the World Food Prize on October 13, WFP’s Executive Director Josette Sheeran said, "Most of the world is not placed to handle the volatility in food prices and supplies. (WFP/Rene McGuffin)

Josette Sheeran, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) director, warns of a humanitarian disaster unfolding in Yemen. Sheeran said last week, “Rising food prices and political instability have left millions of people in Yemen hungry and vulnerable. Malnutrition is stalking the lives of women and children.”

WFP says that even before this year’s political unrest, “more than 50 percent of Yemeni children were chronically malnourished and more than 13 percent were acutely malnourished.”

This year’s chaos in Yemen has made it much harder for these children to gain access to needed foods. Lack of nutrition for children stunts physical and mental growth.

Lubna Alaman, WFP’s Representative in Yemen, says, “The challenges to reach and meet the urgent needs of the most vulnerable are huge, especially in the midst of a very volatile security situation.”

WFP is feeding displaced persons in Southern Yemen and also in the North, where years of conflict have left nearly half a million people struggling in hunger and poverty.

Nationwide, WFP is running a safety net operation to reach nearly 1.8 million Yemenis impacted by high food prices. However, low funding has severely limited the reach of this mission. WFP relies on voluntary funding from the international community.

Sheeran says that “WFP food assistance provides vital nutrition and stability at a time of great need.” If the program becomes fully funded, more Yemenis can be reached.

While Yemen is immersed in hunger and instability, the U.S. Congress is proposing reducing international food aid programs as part of budget cuts. The savings will be minimal and the consequences disastrous. Food aid programs currently make up less than one tenth of one percent of the federal budget.

Hunger and malnutrition are silent, but are so powerful that they can devastate a population within weeks if left unchecked; or they can slowly weaken the people through prolonged malnutrition. Yemen is caught in this trap.

The international community has to act now to put in place the safety nets which can save Yemen from hunger and malnutrition. There cannot be true change in Yemen as long as malnutrition has free reign.

Article first published as WFP Director Warns of Hunger Threat Stalking Yemen at Blogcritics Magazine.

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October 15, 2011 · 3:09 pm

Humanitarian heroes, both large and invisible

The Oct. 13 editorial, “Borlaug Vision Brings World to Iowa,” highlights the World Food Prize event this week in Des Moines.

It’s worth noting, too, that surrounding this critical world hunger symposium is a landscape filled with humanitarian heroes of the past. The most recognizable, of course, are Norman Borlaug and Herbert Hoover, who saved many millions of lives. But there are many others whose names we may not know.

Read my article at The Des Moines Register

Happy World Food Day October 16th!

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October 15, 2011 · 2:33 am

Drew Brees Named WFP Ambassador Against Hunger

Quarterback Drew Brees of the Saints has been named WFP Ambassador Against Hunger (US Navy Photo)

With a hunger crisis engulfing nearly one billion people worldwide, leaders need to step up. Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints is doing just that.

Brees has been named an ambassador for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the largest food aid organization. WFP, which fights hunger in over 70 countries, is a UN agency that depends entirely on voluntary donations.

Bettina Luescher of WFP says, “We are thrilled to welcome Drew Brees to join WFP’s team as our US National Ambassador Against Hunger. The very same qualities that have brought him success, both on and off the football field, will make him an incredibly powerful and effective advocate for the hungry poor.”

Brees, the 2010 Super Bowl MVP, is urging support for famine relief in the Horn of Africa.

Severe drought, coupled with conflict, has caused massive food shortages in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and other parts of East Africa. WFP is the lead agency in fighting the famine which has put over 13 million people at risk of starvation. Children are suffering from severe malnutrition and thousands have already perished. Many can still be saved if relief efforts are supported.

Brees’ advocacy will be critical in keeping focus on the crisis which will extend for many more months until harvests can improve.

Brees says, “Right now, millions of people are at risk of starvation in the Horn of Africa. As the father of two, it’s hard for me to imagine what it must be like for parents to watch helpless as their children suffer.”

WFP is currently short over $200 million for its East Africa relief mission. At the same time, severe food shortages are also being reported in Afghanistan, Sudan, and many other corners of the globe. WFP faces funding shortages in these areas as well and has been forced to scale back child feeding programs.

Global hunger issues struggle to get the media spotlight. Even the famine in East Africa, which was one of the worst humanitarian tragedies in decades, failed to attract a great deal of media attention when the story broke this summer.

Food ambassadors like Drew Brees are desperately needed right now to spread the word, and take the lead in sounding the alarm for this massive hunger crisis.

Visit the Horn of Africa donation page.

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October 13, 2011 · 3:36 pm

School meal programs are defense against child hunger

When he was campaigning for re-election in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt took time in Boston to talk about the country’s school lunch program. FDR said, “Milk does those children more good than political soothing syrup.”

As we celebrate National School Lunch Week, it should be a call to action to our political leaders to put aside partisanship and support child nutrition. It could not be more urgent. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that 16 million children in the U.S. live in food-insecure households. Families are struggling to get food on the shelves.

Read the full article at the Cincinnati Enquirer

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October 13, 2011 · 3:48 am

National School Lunch Week: A Call to Action

When he was campaigning for re-election in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt took time in Boston to talk about the country’s school lunch program. FDR said “milk does those children more good than political soothing syrup.”

The U.S. has built up its school lunch program through the Great Depression, World War II and with the National School Lunch Act of 1946. (photo courtesy Franklin D. Roosevelt Library)

As we celebrate National School Lunch Week, it should be a call to action to our political leaders to put aside partisanship and support child nutrition. It could not be more urgent. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that 16 million children in the U.S. live in food-insecure households. Families are struggling to get food on the shelves.

Our national school lunch and breakfast programs, which provide free or reduced price meals, serve as a critical line of defense against child hunger. Cincinnati, with the Children’s Hunger Alliance of Ohio and USDA, has set a great example by providing free breakfast for all its public school students K-12.

But when school is out, children living in poverty, especially during these tough economic times, are vulnerable. The charity Feeding America supports school pantries, which allow needy families to get take-home rations to fill in these gaps when schools are closed.

Jennifer Small of the Maryland Food Bank is working to establish such pantries in the Eastern shore of her state. The demand for food assistance there has grown. In fact, nationwide the demand for food assistance has gone up, making school pantries and other programs all the more vital.

Small says: “It is so important to ensure children are fed so they can thrive in school. By assisting them and their families with take-home rations for dinners and/or weekend meals, this helps keep them fed so they can concentrate and receive a well-rounded nutritional meal.”

An area of huge glaring weakness is the summer feeding program. Many children who get free or reduced price meals during the school year are unable to access them in the summer. The problem is how to distribute the food when schools are closed.

This is an area where political and community leaders need to work together so that when next summer comes, food assistance does not take a vacation. Hunger certainly does not take the summer off.

Feeding America reports: “During the 2010 federal fiscal year, 20.6 million low-income children received free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program. Unfortunately, just 2.3 million of these same income-eligible children participated in the Summer Food Service Program that same year.”

USDA says it is testing “home delivery of meals and a backpack food program for kids” on days when the summer feeding program is not available. Political leaders can encourage community-based solutions to summer feeding. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio has been very active in this regard.

As President Obama said when proclaiming National School Lunch Week: “Children are America’s greatest treasure, and ensuring their health is one of our most important duties as parents, families, and community members. Our children’s continued ability to learn in the classroom, grow up healthy, and reach their full potential will depend on what we do now to secure their future.”

School feeding has become integral to our country for generations now. No less important are school meals for children in other countries. For our foreign policy, we have to think of school feeding.

We did this after World Wars I and II, when the U.S. supported school feeding to help countries and their children through the harshest of times. American charities even helped provide meals in Nazi- invaded Norway so children’s nutrition did not suffer amid food shortages and the occupation. The reconstruction of Europe after the war included millions of school meals for children.

The U.S. Food for Peace and now the McGovern-Dole programs support school meals overseas. Haiti, for instance, has a school feeding initiative, which is essential to the recovery of the country. The UN World Food Programme, Haiti’s government and donations from the U.S., Brazil, Canada and others are making this program work.

The World Food Programme provides meals at this school UNICEF rebuilt after the earthquake. The U.S. Congress is debating whether to reduce food aid, including school meal initiatives like the McGovern-Dole program which supports Haiti. Currently U.S. spending on food aid accounts for less than one tenth of one percent of the entire federal budget. (WFP/Stephanie Tremblay)

But funding is always an issue. Sadly, proposed budget cuts by Congress will threaten our ability to provide school meals in developing countries. In Afghanistan, for example, there has been such low funding that the World Food Programme may be forced to cease its program feeding 2 million children. This has devastating consequences, because without nutrition and education, no society can advance and have peace.

We will all have a much brighter future if we ensure that all children around the world have access to school meals. As we celebrate National School Lunch Week, let’s remember nutrition is critical for children here and abroad.

Article first published as National School Lunch Week: A Call to Action on Blogcritics Magazine.

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October 11, 2011 · 2:02 pm

Snow Leopard, Yeti Ask for Help in Building Global School Lunch Program

The Huffington Post just ran a story about the Yeti and whether scientists have found evidence of one of the creatures in Siberia. However, readers of my column know that the Yeti has been hard at work for the UN World Food Programme (WFP)  promoting an end to global hunger .

With his friend the Snow Leopard the Yeti was featured in the story and coloring book “The Snow Leopard, the Yeti and the Girl Who Climbed Mount Everest.” The Yeti and the Snow Leopard want kids and their parents to join them in supporting the WFP Fill the Cup Campaign to build a global school lunch program.

The Yeti and the Snow Leopard also issued praise for the McGovern-Dole School Lunch program which just sent food for schoolchildren in their home of Nepal. CNN reports the snow leopard has also been sighted recently in Afghanistan, where there is a tremendous shortage of school meals for children due to low funding for the World Food Programme.

 The Snow Leopard, the Yeti and the Girl Who Climbed Mount Everest (illustrated by Angie Espelage)

Story version and Coloring Book version

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October 11, 2011 · 12:56 pm

A Ghostly Tale Near the Ohio River

100-4602This week at the College of Mount St. Joseph in Ohio, I was helping to arrange a fundraiser to benefit the YWCA and global hunger relief efforts. Not far from the campus, located in Delhi Township, is the Ohio River.

You can see the river from certain vantage points looking down from the Mount. And since it’s Halloween, it’s worth mentioning a tale about a graveyard hidden away in the woods.

Many years ago, when nightfall came, residents of Delhi reported mysterious lights and the eerie tune of a fiddler coming from the graveyard. So scared were the residents that no one dared go to the cemetery. Was this a ghost? No one knew. Would anyone ever know?

In the 1960’s, a Mount St. Joseph professor, Cecil Hale, appeared to have found the answer. Henry Darby (1781-1852), a prominent abolitionist, lived right near the site of the graveyard.

scan0041Hale found out the ghost reports started during the time of the Underground Railroad. This was the secret network that guided slaves to freedom, and was extremely active in the years leading up to the Civil War.

Hale believed the strange lights and music at the graveyard were signals to slaves across the river in Kentucky that it was safe to cross. He wrote a play called the Legend of Fiddler’s Green which tells this story.

scan0040The Ohio River was indeed a major route on the Underground Railroad. So active was the area that the Underground Railroad Freedom Center was eventually located in Cincinnati.

Was this ghostly legend one way that residents of Delhi were secretly working to help operate the Underground Railroad? It appears reasonable that the ghostly mystery is indeed solved. Wait! There are some lights coming from over the hill from the direction of the college. And a strange eerie tune. Oh Great!

The global hunger relief fundraiser is to benefit the Catholic Relief Services school feeding program in Sudan, the Aschiana Foundation, and Edesia, a non-profit organization which produces plumpy’nut. For more information please write here.

Article first published as A Ghostly Tale Near the Ohio River on Blogcritics. (article first published in October 2010)

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October 11, 2011 · 2:56 am

Food for Afghan Schoolchildren Runs Out as Drought Strikes

How can we expect to write the peace without basic food and education for Afghan children? Low funding for WFP has forced the reduction of school feeding programs in Afghanistan. (WFP/Ebadullah Ebadi)

As drought and high food prices have descended upon Afghanistan, safety nets have been taken away from children. Low funding for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) means 1.5 million Afghan children are no longer receiving a school feeding ration.

The situation is getting worse. WFP reports that the supply of fortified high energy biscuits for Afghan school children will run out by November. This will bring a halt to school feeding in Afghanistan and leave another 500,000 children without a school meal. A donation from India is expected to arrive in December, but this will allow for only a limited resumption of the program.

WFP depends entirely on voluntary donations by the international community. Since funding has run dry, all year they have been forced to reduce their school feeding and other food aid programs in Afghanistan.

While they have done this, drought conditions have set in around parts of the country causing food shortages. High food prices remain a threat to the entire impoverished Afghan population.

While hunger escalates in Afghanistan and around the world, the U.S. Congress is proposing reducing funding for the Food for Peace and other global hunger fighting programs.

Food is desperately needed right now in Afghanistan. The international community needs to support urgent food aid for the drought-affected areas. School feeding should be resumed at once and expanded where possible.

Afghanistan’s future cannot be built upon hunger, suffering, and a lack of education. Child feeding programs take on the utmost urgency as malnutrition and lack of education threaten an entire generation of Afghans.

Article first published as Food for Afghan Schoolchildren Runs Out as Drought Strikes on Blogcritics.

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October 10, 2011 · 3:32 am

Japan’s Generosity-6 months after the earthquake

Japan has long been a major donor to the UN World Food Programme. Here is a photo of 2009 meeting announcing a donation to WFP operations in Tajikistan (WFP/Zia Ziauddin)

While Japan has faced enormous challenges since the earthquake struck one thing has not changed-their generosity. Japan continues to be a leader in fighting global hunger as evidenced by a recent donation to the UN World Food Programme. Around 400,000 impoverished families in Bangladesh will benefit from a September donation of 10 million dollars.

H.E. Mr. Tamotsu Shintosuka, Ambassador to Bangladesh says, “We hope the assistance will help poor people of Bangladesh who are the victims of natural disasters and climate change. We are pleased to assist WFP with this donation to help the poorest, most vulnerable and undernourished people of the country.”

Japan continues to reach out to help others countries just as they are rebuilding on the homefront. The charity Save the Children is in Japan providing relief supplies and helping kids deal with the trauma of the last 6 months. One mother remarked to Save the Children staff, “You have made my child smile again.”

Read an article in the Korea Times about Japan’s recovery and Save the Children’s work there.

Listen below to an audio message from Save the Children’s president Carolyn Miles.

Save the Children Reports from Japan- 6 Months after the Earthquake

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October 9, 2011 · 10:16 pm

Over 1 Million in Yemen Denied Emergency Food Rations

Aisha is an internally displaced Yemeni girl in Southern Yemen living in an elementary school. She is one of many Yemeni children who are suffering from hunger and displacement. WFP and other aid agencies need support in order to carry out child feeding and rehabilitation programs. (WFP/Abeer Etefa)

Over one million Yemenis did not receive emergency food rations in September because of low funding for the UN World Food Programme (WFP). The UN food agency depends on voluntary donations from the international community.

As food prices have risen dramatically in 2011, impoverished families have been pushed deeper into hunger. Reports have shown families resorting to skipping meals.

In late 2010 WFP drew up a plan to distribute emergency food rations to around 1.8 million Yemenis who were struggling to afford basics like bread. The idea was a safety net for vulnerable families to prevent malnutrition and disease from gaining strength.

Back in February, I wrote a letter in the New York Times urging acceptance and funding of the plan by the U.S. and international community. As 2011 evolved into a year of protests, instability, and skyrocketing prices, this food aid took on even more urgency.

However, funding has been so limited that seven food-insecure governorates (around 700,000 people) were not able to receive any distributions this year. The cuts deepened as 500,000 more Yemenis were left off the most recent round of food distributions in September.

About 1.2 million Yemenis who should have been receiving food rations from WFP last month did not. But this has been the reality of food assistance programs for Yemen. They have been underfunded as the hunger crisis continues to deepen.

In addition, WFP’s Food for Education program for children has only had two distributions in the last two years. Both of them have been limited and able to reach only part of the intended recipients.

This initiative gives children food rations to take home from school. It’s a great plan for eliminating hunger and keeping kids in class. However, this year’s WFP Food for Education distribution reached only 59,000 of 115,000 planned beneficiaries. The ration size also shrank from two items to one. A program that should be expanded to reach hundreds of thousands of additional children has been getting by on relative scraps for years now.

UNICEF also is suffering from severe funding shortages as they try to help Yemen tackle the crushing child malnutrition crisis. I have reported on these funding shortages on numerous occasions as children lacking in nutrition are at risk of lasting physical and mental damage. It’s clear that no favorable outcome for Yemen will come about unless child nutrition is made a priority.

Anthony Lake, UNICEF’s director, said this week, “Malnutrition rates were alarmingly high in the country even before the current violence broke out, and its impact on the poorest people has only been compounded by rising food prices and collapsing basic health services. Of 3.6 million children under five years of age in Yemen, at least 43 per cent are underweight and 58 per cent are stunted.”

Imagine if a generation of Yemenis were not malnourished. They could solve many of their societal and governmental problems on their own.

What if we gave them that chance? We could do that almost right away with a full supply of plumpy’nut to knock out all existing cases of child malnutrition. A food for education system would do wonders because school feeding promotes nutrition and learning.

If we take action on these fronts, Yemen has a chance for a prosperous and peaceful future. The alternative is to continue to ignore the cries of hunger, and children stunted in growth and mind. That road, we know, is full of peril for all.

Article first published as Over 1 Million in Yemen Denied Emergency Food Rations on Blogcritics.

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