October 16th is World Food Day, and from 1981 on, it has been creating awareness of the problem of hunger and malnutrition around the globe in the hopes of alleviating hunger.Providing nutrient-rich foods to malnourished sponsored children is an important part of Children International's child sponsorship program. In addition to inviting these children to have healthy lunches in our community centers, we teach parents how to prepare balanced meals that won't break the budget. Volunteer mothers help us keep our costs low by becoming the lunch ladies during the week and cooking and serving nutritious dishes for the children who need it.And when times get truly desperate for our sponsored families as the cost of food rises, Children International's Lifeline Food Program is there. Through the program we are able to provide families in need with food baskets that they can take home when the cupboards are bare - without a doubt, an enormous relief for parents struggling to feed their sons and daughters.To see just how Children International helps malnourished children regain their health, view our slideshow "Something Good to Eat."
Photo by Marelvis Campo, Communications Coordinator in Cartagena, Colombia.
When I think of hunger, a face comes to mind.
Pinched cheeks. A painfully thin body. No way to correlate her size with her age. A disposition that could swing from heartbreaking eagerness to disconsolate sobbing in a split second.
Hunger has a name. It's Tania, and I saw her the other day in Ecuador.
On the rare occasions her alcoholic father shows up at home, the family cowers in fear. Mom is sick; she considers her own life to be beyond help, and she desperately hopes for something better for her children. Some days they don't eat at all.
You've probably already received a letter from our president, Jim Cook, explaining to you about our Lifeline Food Appeal.
For the sake of many children like Tania, please read it.
Note: If for some reason you didn't receive Jim's letter and you'd like to help feed a child like Tania, please visit our website. Thanks.
One of the best ways to find out the straight skinny on anything is to ask someone who does it. And for those who want to know the inside story on child sponsorship, there’s no better source than the people who sponsor and the professionals who run the sponsorship programs.
Does such a definitive resource exist for people who sponsor through Children International? The answer is yes!
The Children International Sponsors Google Group is a place where sponsors and professionals from CI get together and talk. You’ll hear sponsors share their happy stories…and some sad ones also. And you’ll get a chance to communicate with people like Neeta Goel (Director of Program Services), Paul Hooper (Regional Director for Africa), other staff from the Program Services department, Greg Jones from Sponsor Services, and many others.
So if you’re curious about how to sponsor a child in Africa…what CI is doing to help feed starving children through our nutrition program…what it’s like to visit your sponsored child in Guatemala…and any number of other questions,
check out the Google group today. You’ll like what you see. Most importantly, you’ll get a chance to share your ideas with other sponsors just like you – people who have decided to make a difference…and are doing it!
By Damon Guinn
The Midwest is probably the last place you’d expect to hear diplomats debate worldwide hunger and international food relief. So it may come as a surprise that Kansas City was the site of this week’s International Food Aid Conference, sponsored by the USDA and USAID.
In a sense, Kansas City could be considered the agricultural epicenter of the nation. It’s home to a major board of trade for agriculture and is surrounded by states that produce a bounty of cattle, corn, grains, pigs and poultry. What better setting then for interested parties to take a place at the table and talk about the future course of food aid?
During the conference, Tom Vilsack, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, announced that the USDA will nearly double its support of a $95.5 million food aid program that benefits starving and hungry children in poor countries.
Speaking on behalf of President Obama, Secretary Vilsack reiterated the importance of providing food relief to children in need. “The president understands that if we do that and do a better job of it, then it will make (eventually) all of us much safer, because if these kids are well-fed and well-cared for at the beginning of life, then they will see that there are boundless opportunities for them.”
The announcement is good news for Children International, considering our efforts to reduce malnutrition in several of the world’s poorest communities.
Last year, we appealed to many of you for help in providing emergency food relief to sponsored children and their families, and your response was overwhelming. We raised nearly $1 million worth of food relief for struggling families who have seen the prices of food items like rice, corn and cooking oil skyrocket – in some places as much as 75 percent.
With your support, we have been able to deliver food relief when, and where, it's needed most. And our ongoing nutrition workshops and nutritional rehabilitation programs make it possible for us to take direct action in curbing hunger and malnutrition.
In a world where a child dies of hunger every 5 seconds, your support through sponsorship is a key component of a global initiative to save lives. And that can give us all a little more food for thought.
Learn more about world hunger, and what Children International is doing to curb it, by clicking the links below:
Based on reports from The Associated Press
and The Kansas City Star.
“The curse of poverty has no justification in our age...The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”
These wise words were spoken by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 45 years ago, yet here we are today, still struggling to end poverty.
At Children International we are optimistic that the battle can be won – we have to be. And we have reason to be. Every day our field staff witnesses these small victories. A child trading in his old flip-flops for his first pair of new shoes. Youth teaching each other about resisting peer pressure that could lead them down the wrong path. Children waiting in our community centers to be seen by a doctor for the first time in their lives...
And even those of us in the office who don’t work on the proverbial front lines see the barriers of poverty being broken. When a person cares enough to take the first step and requests free information about sponsorship. When someone makes a call and sponsors a child living in poverty. When a sponsor writes a letter to a child encouraging her to stay in school, telling her how proud she makes them feel.
As King put it, “We cannot be content to see hunger, to see [people] victimized with ill health, when we have the means to help them...The agony of the poor impoverishes the rich...Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.” Perhaps we still have a long way to go to achieve one of Dr King’s many dreams, but sponsorship matters and so does your support. You care about a child living in poverty, and for that, we thank you.
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