World Food Program USA Blog

Thanksgiving: A Time to Reflect

Last week I went up to New York City for Thanksgiving with my family.  It was a shift from the traditional Thanksgiving as we had no family in the city and just wanted to go see a show and have a nice family vacation like we had when my sister and I were younger.   

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  It gives us a time to reflect and be thankful for what we have.  This year the holiday hit home harder than it ever did in the past for me.  Working for Friends of the World Food Program (Friends of WFP) and reading and talking about the hungry poor around the world humbles you and makes you realize how lucky you are and how thankful you should be for the opportunities you have.   

On Saturday in New York City my family went on a tour of the United Nations headquarters.  This tour was a very sobering reminder of the real divide between the western world and developing countries.  For example, we saw an entire exhibit dedicated to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.  The first goal is to eventually eradicate hunger from the earth, which starts with halving the number of hungry people by 2015.  Unfortunately the number of hungry poor in the world is going the other direction, as 1 billion people around the world now go to bed hungry every night.  In this exhibit I saw WFP’s famous red cup, which represents the hope of many children around the world to get out of poverty with WFP’s School Meals Program. 

Even though we are seeing the number of hungry increase, that doesn’t mean we should give up.  We need to work together to help those less fortunate than us.  Every day that I come into work, I feel fortunate that I can dedicate my life to those living in poverty.  If we all work together we can end hunger and get rid of my job.  At least give me two weeks notice (that’s a funny joke I just made, you can laugh now).   

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Feel free to share what you are thankful for. 

-Brian J. Ward
Outreach Associate
Friends of WFP

Feed the Hungry...With Fruitcake

By giving the gift no one wants, you can give the gift everyone needs: create a Facebook Fruitcake with PayPal's Regift the Fruitcake campaign to help WFP feed the hungry.

It's simple. Go to www.RegiftTheFruitcake.com, click on "Make a Fruitcake", and select the World Food Program as your chosen charity. Then set a fundraising goal for your Fruitcake, and send it to as many people as you can on Facebook. For each regifting or donation your Fruitcake receives, it will earn points. The more people regift your Fruitcake, the more money and awareness will be raised to fight global hunger!

The charity that raises the most money by December 31 will win an additional $20,000. Participants are also eligible to win great prizes - each week, the user whose Fruitcake has the most points will win an ASUS Eee PC 1000HE Netbook, and the user whose Fruitcake earns the most points by the end of the campaign will win $5,000.

-Alli Bailey
Communications Assistant
Friends of WFP

Thanks and Giving

                                                                                Yesterday, the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) received a donation of $400,000 from the government of South Africa to aid food security in Somalia and Ethiopia. The funding will be split evenly between the two countries and comes at a crucial time for the recipients.

 “This donation will provide vital food rations to extremely vulnerable people in Ethiopia and Somalia, helping them to cope with the devastating impact of drought, high food prices and the global economic crisis,” said Ramiro Lopes da Silva, WFP Special Envoy from the Horn of Africa.

With many of the world’s nations struggling with food insecurity, Thanksgiving seems to be the perfect time to be thankful for what we have, but also to be aware of what others don’t. Over 1 billion people in the world are suffering from hunger, a number that continues to rise.

At this time, I would like to express my thanks. I give thanks to the government of South Africa for aiding WFP in its food security mission, I give thanks for the food I am privileged to have, and I give thanks to working with this wonderful organization in making the necessity of food possible for even more people around the world.

Donate now.

Read more about South Africa’s donation.

-Sara Thomson
 Outreach Intern
 Friends of WFP

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Mixed Results from World Summit on Food Security

Last week I wrote a post about the beginning of the World Summit on Food Security, hosted by the United Nations.  At the end of the summit several countries promised to increase their funding to agricultural programs to help developing countries become more independent.  They also agreed to five principles designed to tackle food insecurity. 

Here are the five principles:

1. Invest in country-owned plans. 
2. Foster strategic coordination at the national, regional and global levels to improve governance, to help create better efficiency.
3. Develop a comprehensive plan that looks to tackle food insecurity in the short, medium and long-term. 
4. Ensure a strong role for the multilateral system. 
5. Ensure sustained and substantial commitment by all partners to investment in agriculture, food security and nutrition.  

There were also many leaders who were disappointed with the results of the summit.  The summit brought together more than 60 leaders from around the world but there was only one leader from the G8 countries: the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.  According to Voice of America, critics say that the promises that were made this year were similar to the promises made 10 years ago. 

Read the full Declaration of the World Summit on Food Security. 

-Brian J. Ward
Outreach Associate
Friends of WFP

Help Friends of WFP win up to $4,000!

This holiday season, the company News Generation will be making a donation to two non-profit organizations and they need your help deciding which ones!

Tell News Generation that you think Friends of WFP should receive a special donation this holiday by voting for us here. 

Voting lasts until December 1, and you can vote more than once! Please share this link with your friends and family to help Friends of WFP win up to $4,000 to help feed hungry people around the world. 

-Jessica Lennon
 Web Associate
 Friends of WFP

Imagine 1 Million People Living in NYC's Central Park

Imagine about 1 million people living on a piece of land the size of New York City’s Central Park. Then imagine that same place with limited running water, with no sewage system, a place where less than once fifth of houses have electricity, a place where animals and trash fill the muddy alleyways. Then imagine that in the middle of that you peek down an alleyway and see some old grain bags filled with dirt, where green leaves are just starting to sprout. You are inside Kibera. And inside Kibera these mini gardens are starting to crop up as people try to grow something from nothing.

The first week of November, eight people traveled together to Kenya to witness WFP operations on the ground. Towards the end of the visit, the group went to Kibera, said to be Africa's largest slum. In reality, measuring the number of people inside is an estimate at best with no census to record population. Trying to estimate facilities inside Kibera also proves difficult – data suggests that one latrine (a hole in the ground) is shared by up to 50 homes. More often Kibera is known for the “flying toilet,” whereby plastic bags are thrown onto rooftops in the hopes of being forgotten. As we walked through Kibera on a gray rainy day when everything had turned to slush, you see that the ground is layers upon layers of plastic bags decomposing, the bags having long slid down from the tin roofs.

Kibera is home to many, and yet it is a place the outside world cannot visualize. Our group was escorted into Kibera to visit a clinic, a school and a couple homes with staff of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). With us were four armed guards. One weekend prior to our visit, riots inside Kibera had resulted in a couple deaths and we were advised to be cautious as we entered a world not our own.

Making a life inside Kibera is not easy. One WFP staffer estimated that 70 percent of Kibera residents do not have a regular wage to rely on, meaning that most of the population is unemployed. The women we met spoke of looking for jobs as clothes washers, knocking on doors offering their services. In the winter months, they say work becomes increasingly difficult as the cold water makes their hands ache. And, if they suffer from HIV/AIDS, then they are even less likely to be able to work as their bodies become weak with pain.

Most of the homes are about 10x10 feet, made of mud walls with corrugated tin roofs. The average house will sleep 10 people. Interestingly, even though this land is government owned, there are landlords inside Kibera who stop by to pick up their dues. Monthly rent might be about $2.50 a month and almost everyone runs behind on his or her payments since they are unable to find work. One little boy came home saying he had been asked to leave school after being unable to pay his dues for the last 3 months, dues of 60 cents a month.

The most dramatic part of this visit was realizing the reality of urban poverty. Kibera is built into a valley, and from the tops of the hills you can look across to middle-income homes in Nairobi. Every day there is a reminder for these people of the haves and have not’s. Yet, there in those old grain bags, gardens are starting as people try to grow food for themselves. This is one tiny ray of hope inside a place I still cannot quite fathom. Never before has the reality of food or no food been more starkly in my mind as we enter the Thanksgiving week.

See what Kibera looks like with CSIS’s Commission on Smart Global Health.



-Jessica Alatorre
Outreach Associate
Friends of WFP

Two more congressmen supporting The Roadmap to End Global Hunger

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Vote for WFP at the Mashable Open Web Awards

After a month-long nomination period, WFP's A Billion for a Billion campaign is one of the top five nominees for the "Best Non-Profit Use of Social Media" award at Mashable's 3rd Annual Open Web Awards: Social Media Edition.

A Billion for a Billion poses a simple scenario: What if the world's online billion helped the world's hungry billion? The campaign encourages internet supporters to spread the word about global hunger through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, through personal websites and blogs, and through real-life events such as a hunger banquet or a karaoke night.

Voting for Mashable's Open Web Awards is open until December 13, and you may vote once per day. Click here to vote for WFP!

-Alli Bailey
Communications Assistant
Friends of WFP