Campaign: Ending Hunger

FAO (the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) has launched the second season of the “The 1billionhungry project” initiated in May 2010.

It all started with a simple signature drive.

Hunger worldwide was out of control.  Government leaders from all five continents travelled to Rome for a summit, to see what could be done.

While the presidents, prime ministers and other leaders deliberated, it was felt that their citizens should also have a say in the matter.  A petition was put online for individuals everywhere to sign. It called the world hunger situation “unacceptable” and challenged politicians to act.

The 1billionhungry project launched with the aim of collecting a million signatures by November 2010.

The slogan was: “We who support the petition find it unacceptable that close to one billion people are chronically hungry. Through the United Nations, we call upon Governments to make the elimination of hunger their top priority until that goal is reached”.

The campaign triggered a storm of public anti-hunger events, drew thousands of fans to its Facebook page, and by November 2010 had attracted over 3.3 million signatures. The 1billionhungry campaign is continuing, and the petition will be presented to government leaders for a second time in October 2011.

The new sister website to the 1billionhungry.org is – EndingHunger.org –, offering the public concrete ideas on what they can do to help end hunger. Endinghunger.org is aimed at high school and college students and those just out of university, who are the people with the greatest potential to actually change the world. The site offers ideas about what individuals can do to help fight hunger, featuring video, animations, podcasts and recommended books.

The message of the new campaign www.endinghunger.org is the following:

“Nearly a billion hungry is a much higher level than we would have anticipated in our worst dreams. It is absolutely horrific which is why now we really want to shout about it. We are way off track for meeting the goals set by the UN to reduce the number of hungry to 420 million by 2015. We can find hundreds of billions of dollars overnight to shore up currencies and bail out the banks, so we can find the resources to end hunger if the political will is there. Numbers of hungry have risen due to high food prices and the financial crisis. The poorest on the planet pay the heaviest price. That is something we should really get angry about.”

The objectives? A critical mass of people who no longer accept the presence of one billion fellow human beings living in chronic hunger. To make a lot of noise about the problem. To build up political pressure for change.

History has shown time and again that when young people by the thousands push hard enough, anything is possible.  Even ending hunger.

Connect with the 1billionhungry project @

www.endinghunger.org

Sign the petition: www.1billionhungry.org

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