ThinkQuest : HUNGER : A BRUTE'S BITE

- PROJECT INTRODUCTIO​N & ASSESSMENT
- PROJECT LAUNCH & INTRODUCTIO​N
- DAILY DISCUSSION PAGE
- RESOURCES TO BE EXPLORED
- PEOPLE SAY IT THIS WAY-SURVEY
- INTERACTION
- IMAGES SPEAK
- Activity_Qu​iz-Whiz
- SPECIAL ACTIVITY_IN​TERVIEW
- Artifacts_C​reative Painting & Slogans
- THE EYE OPENER_MULT​IMEDIA
- HUNGER : THE MONSTER KILLER
- SUGGESTIVE WAYS TO ERADICATE HUNGER
- SCAFFOLDS
- REFLECTION
- CELEBRTAION​_SEMINAR
- CITATION & CREDITS
- TEACHER-PEE​R FEEDBACK
- PROJECT LAUNCH

# SUGGESTIVE WAYS TO ERADICATE HUNGER

26 Apr, 2013

## Make Hay while the Sun Shines

### Make hay while the sun shines proverb means to explore the situation to the maximum possible extent if the condition is favourable. It applies in this context too. The whole community of the big global leaders are immensely troubled with this hunger cause. Especially recntly elected US President Mr Obama is personally involved in the eradication of HUNGER from the global scene latest by 2015. Just after coming to the White House he showed his concern over this issue. It is perhaps because he himself has sensed the agony of being hungry in his childhood. It is perhaps because he feels the silent woe of the hungry people. It is perhaps because he has empathized the intensity of the misery of a hungry man. He has taken many brave steps because he feels the silent agony of the sufferers. He released a three page press note on 05/04/2008 which discusses many issues like “Tackling Poverty”, “Eliminate Child Hunger by 2015”, “Providing All Poor Children with a Free School Meal”, “Improve Government’s Response to Hunger” etc. This is all because the press note writes, “When he was a child, Barack Obama’s mother briefly received food stamps to put food on the table when she needed help. As a result, Barack Obama understands firsthand that federal nutrition and food assistance programs play a key role in minimizing the ill-effects of poverty and improving the diets of low-income working families, especially children. He will strengthen and expand nutrition assistance programs and commit to ending childhood hunger by 2015.” This note is available on the website www.barackobama.com .

### Hence, this is the right time for the big global leaders to join hands with Mr Obama in its complete eradication so that the next generation shall not feel its deadly consequences .

28 Apr, 2013

## Faith can Move Mountains!

### It is well said that every day is spent on the hope for tomorrow otherwise the entire effort of the mankind will come to a stand still. Someone wishes to have son tomorrow, the other wishes to gain money. The next plans to win a race but the other hopes for next meal on the name of charity. And this is the hope that keeps every individual alive and revolving.

### Of course, a great deal is being done by the governments of all countries to kill this monster but this is like such a Hindu mythological demon called “Sursa” who, if the head is cut, comes to life again ten fold out of one drop of blood fallen on the ground.

### We must not quit from the hope that this problem will linger for ever. I can strongly predict that there will be its end, if not today, ‘tomorrow never dies’.

26 Apr, 2013

## Tomorrow never dies

### It is well said that every day is spent on the hope for tomorrow otherwise the entire effort of the mankind will come to a stand still. Someone wishes to have son tomorrow, the other wishes to gain money. The next plans to win a race but the other hopes for next meal on the name of charity. And this is the hope that keeps every individual alive and revolving.

### Of course, a great deal is being done by the governments of all countries to kill this monster but this is like such a Hindu mythological demon called “Sursa” who, if the head is cut, comes to life again ten fold out of one drop of blood fallen on the ground.

### We must not quit from the hope that this problem will linger for ever. I can strongly predict that there will be its end, if not today, ‘tomorrow never dies’.

28 Apr, 2013

## Take action

1. Influence public policy to support poor people. Governments play a key role in allocating resources and adopting policies that influence the lives of poor and hungry people. Use your citizenship and self-empowerment to influence the nation's voice including changing government policies.

2. Contribute financially to reducing hunger and poverty. While it is, in general, not possible to support individual poor families, it is possible to contribute to organizations that do support poor people.

3. Work directly with poor people.

4. Sustainable Agriculture

80 percent of food-insecure people live in rural areas and half of them are smallholder farmers (land less than two hectares). Research shows that smallholder farming systems are ecologically sustainable.

5. Tree Planting

Trees reduce soil erosion, provide oxygen to offset carbon dioxide and can be sources of food, energy and income for communities. In Uganda, they have a partnership with the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) to establish a tree nursery at Kiboga Epicenter. This provides 80,000 tree seedlings of pine and eucalyptus species to our partners for planting in their fields to improve the environment. In Bangladesh, trained village leaders, called "animators," and volunteer students mobilize tree-planting mass-action campaigns. Animators have established hundreds of village tree nurseries, which then become entrepreneurial village businesses, supplying families with fruit trees that not only capture carbon, but also provide impoverished families with nutrition and income.

Promoting Women's Role

In most communities, women hold the most reliable knowledge about promoting food security, preserving food supplies, and ensuring their families' survival in the face of shortages. Women must have a voice in planning and decision-making processes that will impact them and to which they could contribute their expertise. Women also need access to resources, including education, extension services and information, credit, organizations and social networks and voice in the political system.

28 Apr, 2013

## How much is India imperative for this cause..

The country programme for India (2008–2012) is consistent with WFP’s Strategic Plan (2006–2009), the priorities of India’s 11th Five Year Plan and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (2008–2012).

It takes into account lessons learned from previous interventions and the recommendations of the mid-term evaluation of the 2003–2007 country programme.

Economic growth continues in India, resulting in a substantial reduction in poverty; but food and nutrition insecurity remain high. India is home to 40 percent of the world’s undernourished children and prevalence of vitamin and mineral deficiencies is among the highest in the world – yet India has some of the world’s largest food-based welfare schemes.

WFP’s assistance in India has shifted from food delivery towards capacity-development to support India’s own schemes to reach its nutritional objectives and the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of underweight children by 2015.

The programme will concentrate on improving the effectiveness of India’s schemes to reach the hungry poor and ensuring that better quality food is provided. A minimal amount of food will be resourced for the purpose of introducing innovative models with defined lifespans in a costsharing scheme with the Government.

MANREGA is one such programme that helps minimize this cause.

26 Apr, 2013

## Political will and action to eradicate hunger

Among the countries rising to meet the challenge of translating hunger eradication efforts into large-scale programmes is Nigeria, which has committed itself to taking its national food security programme nationwide, no small undertaking given its population of more than 130 million.

The country's SPFS activities currently reach around 35 000 families. In 2002, Nigeria embarked on a five-year up-scaling process, with a goal of reaching 1 million people with its integrated food security programme, comprising irrigation, soil fertility improvement, crop intensification, animal production and health, aquaculture and artisanal fisheries, marketing, storage and processing components.

Another country committed to expanding its SPFS activities beyond the pilot phase is Pakistan, whose Ambassador and Permanent Representative to FAO, H.E. Mirza Qamar Beg, gave the panel a short overview of the SPFS in his country.

Based on the achievements of the pilot phase, Pakistan's SPFS was expanded to 109 villages nationwide under its Crop Maximization Programme with government funds totalling US$8.7 million. The expansion will benefit some 23 000 households over the next four years. Moreover, the President of Pakistan has recently requested that the programme be up-scaled to 1 000 villages.

The examples of Nigeria and Pakistan are part of a growing trend towards comprehensive, national food security programmes, which move beyond a focus on agriculture alone to begin to address many of the other policy and institutional constraints that leave so many people hungry.

26 Apr, 2013

## Helping Hungry People: A Sunday School

Hungry People is a five-week curriculum that helps elementary-age students learn about the Christian call to help people in need. This curriculum, designed to help the students prepare for the church's Offering of Letters, takes students on "trips" to a local soup kitchen, Haiti, Zambia, and India.

They will learn about people living in poverty. The students will also study the teachings of Jesus. They will engage in a variety of ways to help people who are hungry, through prayer, providing food for a food pantry, collecting money to give to an organization fighting poverty, and writing letters to their members of Congress. Helping Hungry People is a curriculum that allows teachers to not just teach Scripture, but to do Scripture.

28 Apr, 2013

## Steps to Remove Hunger in India

Akshayapatra-A Noble Institution

Every year, 2.5 million children die in India, which accounts for about one in five deaths in the world. More than half of these deaths could be prevented if children were well nourished. India's progress in reducing child malnutrition is not so appreciable.

The proven path to helping the poor, is by educating them. Providing food works as an important factor that encourages education; this in turn enables their overall development transforming their lives and communities.

A hungry child cannot be expected to have an urge for education. Akshayapatra organization provide nutritious meals to about 1 million children – so as to promote education among them.

Akshaypatra, a not-for-profit organization with a baseline "unlimited food for education" was evolved in year 2000 & it started it work in the same year.

It started as a pilot project in five schools in Bangalore, for about 1,500 children & has now grown into a mammoth endeavor reaching out to 993,147 children in about 16 locations across six states.

28 Apr, 2013

## Removing hunger globally

IFPRI

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) seeks to attain sustainable solutions for ending hunger and poverty globally. IFPRI is one of 15 centers supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, an alliance of 64 governments, private foundations, and international and regional organizations.

IFPRI's Vision

Its vision is based on the human right to adequate food and freedom from hunger, and the recognition of the dignity inherent in all human beings. It dreams of a world where every person has secure access to sufficient and safe food to sustain a healthy and productive life.

IFPRI gives priority to those activities that benefit the greatest number of poor people in greatest need in the developing world. In carrying out its activities, IFPRI seeks to focus on vulnerable groups, which are still influenced by class, religion, ethnicity, agro ecological location, and gender etc.

26 Apr, 2013

## Vision of the Reason

### Gone are the days of Robert Browning when he wrote, “God is in His Heaven; and all is right with the world.” It can now well be parodied “God is in His Heaven; and everything is not right with the world.” I would prefer to cite here the poem of my coach, Mr Mishra, in this reference.

### What shall it Profit?

### Bygone days had swifter wings
That flied over the assorted lands
And brought the harmonious peace
To tune the music and the gong.
But present borrowed mind is leaning
Forward and backward
Backward and forward
Out and in
In and out
Of the closed room.
No knock, no sound, no stem
Comes from the crowded corridor
After a wavering noise of unbreakable syllables
After the heterogeneous mouth’s utterance
After the pronounced morpheme
From the outside room.
The inside room quivers
In fear, in horror it shudders.
On the bed mind struggles
Struggles and cracks, aches and breaks
Breaks and shakes
For no hand comes to weave
The torn fabric in silent peace.
Winning, defeating, defeating and winning
It runs its own spinning
Of worn out fabric like man made machine
Of iron and steel, of hardest wheel.
I have no rest. We have no rest.
Where should I go now? Where shall I run?
Shall I go to a bookstall or to station?
Or shall I take an aspirin and rest in oscillation?
What shall I do?
What shall we ever do?
Get up at five and on the bed at ten.
And if hungry, a satisfying lunch
And if thirsty, few drops of filtered water
And if no work at seven in the evening
Either a boasting chat or fifty-two playing cards
And if free at nine in the night
The cosmic news on the screen
And if no sleep at twelve in the midnight
A man of full ambivalence.
We do our formal routine
With respected mind and cunning brain
With cunning brain and respected mind
Like a tired desire of the oldest kind.
The world treads searching
The sense from nonsense
Like a poor young maid
Collecting wastes and fuel
Fuel and food
To us also feed just to the full.
This time offers no rest.
No rest to rest in peace
Except the duty and routine and daily an aspirin.
What shall it profit?
What shall it profit a man
If he wins the whole world
And loses his own soul?

###

### This poem reflects the predicament of the modern man. Be it rich, be it poor, be it hungry, be it fed, they are running in such a horse race that no one finds time for others.

### We are living in the 21st century which poses sundry challenges and innumerable troubles. The population of the world is expected to be seven billion by the end of second decade. It is increasing rapidly especially in the underdeveloped or developing countries. The blame goes to poverty, illiteracy, and many others. But mere blaming the reasons do not provide a resolution. Brave steps to check the rapid growth of this severe scene is yet to be materialized.

### On the other hand, this is a planet we have inherited from our forefathers as a treasure to use and return it safely to the next generation. But in our greed, we have forgotten the basic essence of our existence. We have started exploiting it so vehemently that we hardly care for the others. It seems we are sitting on the hearth which will burn us all if no remedial measures are adopted in time. A proverb defines it better ‘a stitch in time, saves nine’. It means we are not ignorant about these all; rather we are ignoring it knowingly. And for that we will have to pay a very high price. The burning problems that immediately need to be attended are not merely the hunger but shortage of drinking water, climate change, and green house effects too. They have reached to an alarming level. If they are unattended for another one century, this planet will be at the verge of extinction. There is no chance of survival.

### Every individual has the right to food. If this fundamental right is prevented from anybody, this will give birth to inequality. Inequality will lead to dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction will further lead to protest. Protest may be so vehement that this might take the shape of war. War means annihilation of the mankind in vast number. Which way does best suit the ‘haves’? Go for war or manage equal distribution of food for the sufferers? It is we who have to decide.

### Though government of all the countries and the World Food Programme, USA, are taking serious care to this monstrous problem, but this is not enough. They don’t reach to the people as and when and in required amount to the needy. We, the people, must take this as an obligation to support the hungry men, women and children of whatsoever race, cast, creed and nation we come across. We must take an oath not to waste even a single grain from our plate. Lend supporting hands to the needy. Thank god for the food He has provided us. Never ever take things for granted. Who knows some day we may be in their queue.

###