Last week, CNN scrolled a message across the bottom of my TV screen that statistics regarding world hunger had risen in the last year. In fact, according to the World Hunger Education Service (WHES), over 815 million people are hungry every day, which amounts to over 10 percent of the world’s population.
Years ago, when I worked at Oxfam America, I learned that a large part of hunger was a matter of distribution. At Oxfam the idea is not to feed people but to supply them with the means of feeding themselves, which makes sense, but is only a part of the answer. At any given time large regions face starvation. Right now, millions of people are at risk of starvation and death in South Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen. There is food insecurity in many other African and Asian countries. There is food insecurity in America.
Famines are often the result of devastating weather patterns, such as drought, or immediate catastrophic problems, such as an earthquake, or war. Lack of water is a major issue, which some very clever minds are tackling, but there is no immediate solution. Distribution is only part of the solution, as most of what can be distributed consists of carbohydrates, leaving protein and dietary fat out of the mixture. In areas where immediate relief is needed, ready to eat peanut and milk pastes are distributed, as are grain and milk powder mixes that require clean water to rehydrate.
I know firsthand how that lack of protein can affect a body. When I adopted my daughter from Ethiopia, she reached only 25 percent of height and weight averages as charted by her doctor. She told me she does not remember being hungry, so I have always suspected the problem was a lack of protein. She grew a foot during her first year in this country, which I attribute to meat and milk.
In the two weeks I spent in Ethiopia I saw a lot of very thin people and very few elderly citizens. In fact, I only spotted one overweight gentleman and the sight was so unusual that I wanted to follow him to ask if he were visiting the country. Once outside of Addis Ababa the population grew very thin and the poverty was unlike anything I had ever imagined. And while there is dire poverty in this country, I have never had anyone beg me for my trash here. People lacked everything imaginable. I saw skeletal, bent women struggling up the side of a hill with bundles of clothes on their backs, heading for a thin cascade of water where I assumed they were going to wash the clothes. I stopped in roadside cafes so decrepit and worn that I wanted to cry. And everywhere people begged. Kids begged for my pens, for the lunch we brought with us to the Blue Nile Gorge, for money, for any little shred of hope.
I came back from Africa a changed person. My attitude about consumerism has never been the same. We buy and buy and buy in this country. I know kids who always, and I mean ALWAYS, receive the latest Apple product. We shop for recreation. We give our kids too much, and honestly, I am no exception, but I try to put charity into the mix. Last year, I told my daughter that I could not think of a thing to put into her Easter basket. There was absolutely nothing she needed and she told me she couldn’t think of a thing she wanted. So we gave money to the Heifer Society instead.
Through the Heifer Society you can help a family by buying them a cow or some goats or help them receive a microloan or job training. Women, especially, have benefitted greatly from this program. Other charities found at Charity Navigator can help you decide where to donate and let you know how each charity spends its money.
Most of us feel helpless when looking at pictures of children dying of starvation. Other than donating money, there really is little we can do in that moment. However, we can help to change public policy. The WHES lists organizations that are trying to affect change both globally and in this country. So make some calls and make some noise.
We can also buy less. Giving up something small and sending that $10 or $20 to a charity is easier to do than you think and can become a habit. Once you start really thinking about bringing less into your home, you will find that it becomes a compelling idea. And, of course, there is that elephant in the room – zero population control.
No one ever talks about it. No one ever wants to say that people should not be reproducing at a rate higher than our planet can support. We used to have that discussion though. I can remember people signing petitions and discussions about population density when I was a kid.
We have a falling population in this country and we let in fewer and fewer immigrants, so our worries are not going to be the same as those in densely populated countries with less available birth control. And that is the concept that makes everyone squirm. People don’t want to tell other people to stop having large families, but ask a starving woman in the Global South if she would like to stop having children after the six or eight she has already borne and you will no doubt find someone eager for education and help.
Birth control can revolutionize women’s lives. With fewer children women can more readily work, better care for the children they have, and find independence outside of marriage. It seems to me that we should be helping women take control of their reproductive rights as much as we need to help people to eat regularly and climb out of poverty. Actually, one of the best ways to achieve the latter is to ensure the former.
