First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I enjoyed a lovely day with my family, watched some football, and continued watching some late night TV shows as I struggle through a cold. Something was different today though... All that turkey at dinner didn’t really give me any kind of sleepiness. I seemed to have conquered the so-called “Turkey Coma.”
Anyway, tonight I watched a two-week old taping of Letterman. I got a couple good laughs from some of the guests and the rather corny jokes. My interest peaked when Ms. Bettina Luescher came onto the show. Her name sounded familiar, so a quick Google search yielded that she was a spokesman for the World Food Program. I wondered what she would talk about, and took some notes, since I had my laptop with me anyway. Some things she mentioned surprised me, while others were more repetitive to some things that were discussed in my Crisis Informatics class. Allow me to elaborate.
Ms. Luescher started out with a simple introduction. The UN’s World Food Program has been in operation for 50 years now, which is a fantastic achievement. She made a big point that the Food Program isn’t political, but I wondered how long it took them to discuss plans of operation for disasters and famines, since that process is absolutely political. Overall, they don’t discriminate against where they go to help, they will go anywhere in the world to help people. An interesting fact I learned was that women are the most vulnerable. Especially in 3rd world countries and other undeveloped countries, it is common that women are the caretakers for the family. They take care of their children and do what they can for their husbands. This makes women THE key to fighting hunger. That just blew my mind (my sleep depraved mind).
An obvious question of many people, that Dave was kind enough to ask, was whether or not the world has enough food to care for every hungry person in the world, and the fact is absolutely. The problem is that it costs money to feed people, and there isn’t enough money in the programs that feed the hungry. The UN needs $250 million dollars to feed the number of people in the world who are hungry right now. And even with countries making their contributions, there is still a big gap that needs to be filled.
You can text (SMS) the word AID to 27722 to donate $10 to the World Food Program.
Ms. Luescher then started fielding questions from Dave, and I found that the questions were actually some things that I’ve talked to with some of the visitors we’ve had in class. Dave asked about the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia, and how things were going out there. Ms. Luescher talked about how people in the Horn of Africa have been taking on huge migrations just to find food and safe water. Then Dave made a point concerning one fact that came out of the newspapers:
“... in 90 days, 29,000 children under the age of 6, died of starvation, just in Somalia.”
Dave was completely astonished by this fact, and it really is unfathomable for all the children and families out in the Horn of Africa who are dying even as I write this blog post. According to Ms. Luescher, the United States government is one of the biggest donors to the program, and they’re doing their best for the UN.
Somalia really has become the worst case scenario for relief organizations. The UN has limited action in Somalia as of 2010 because of the 14 relief workers who were killed during the conflicts between extremist militants and government forces. This limits actions in the Horn of Africa to local NGOs that have stronger ties to the local communities.
Overall, when the drought comes, people don’t have anything to fall back on, especially in these poorer nations.
The United Nations needs money for the World Food Program. You can do your part by texting AID to 27722 to donate $10. Ten dollars which could feed a person in Somalia for 3 weeks.
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