So, you made it through Irene.
You're relieved. Perhaps feeling slightly foolish at the amount of bottled water or granola you bought, or dreading scraping all the tape off your windows. But feeling lucky to have food, water, and a roof over your head. Walls too, even.
Maybe now is a good time to think of those in East Africa who right now have none of the above.
Join me below the fold for the donation link, and a fascinating talk by the head of the UN's World Food Programme called "Ending Hunger Now."
[For a text version, go to Josette Sheeran on Ending Hunger Now; on the right-hand side of the page, there's a full transcript in sixteen languages.]
One slide Sheeran shows in the video (at about 5:03) is side-by-side brain scans of two three-year-old children. One of them had adequate nutrition. Had, in the simplest terms, enough food. Had a mother who, during her pregnancy, had enough food.
The other... didn't. The other was deeply malnourished.
I'm sure pediatricians and neurologists could find dozens of differences in the details of those scans. But you don't need to be a doctor to see the difference. The brain on the right -- the brain of the malnourished child -- is tiny. An acorn next to a walnut.
This is a screencap of that slide:
The impact of this privation is lifelong.
But, it's not all bad news. The World Food Program(me) is having real results. They've found that villages in Cameroon can bank their own food for the hungry season. They've found that offering school feedings brings school attendance by girls, in areas where girls didn't use to go to school, to parity with boys, and results in later, healthier pregnancies. They've found that sending "digital food" -- electronic food debit cards, like SNAP or WIC, which have to be spent on healthy, local food -- to places where there is food but people can't afford it, not only feeds people, but boosts local food industries and even increases hiring at local groceries.
For those who say, we've been sending food aid for decades and nothing changes, there's the information that the World Food Programme has been able to pull out of thirty countries, because they have leaders that step up and say they won't have people going hungry on their watch.
Of course, there are matters that can be debated. For example, one commenter argued that guaranteeing farmers buyers for their crops encourages monocropping (growing just one variety of one food), making their yields more vulnerable to diseases and droughts.
But overall, the message was clear: we can change things. We can end hunger. We can feed the world.
Many of these programs are long-term. Right now, the refugees in East Africa are in immediate need of food, water, and sanitation. Oxfam is working on the ground on the latter two. If, today, your toilet still flushes and your tap still runs clear and clean, please consider helping others access these most basic necessities.
© cai
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© cai