World Food Program USA Blog

A salute to the generosity of our soldiers

This Memorial Day offers a chance to remember the heroism and sacrifice of American soldiers. Let's also remember their generosity in the most difficult of circumstances.

Right before Christmas 1944, with World War II raging, a Belgian father published an open letter in a newspaper to "General Eisenhower and his brave warriors."  He wrote about the great compassion of American soldiers sharing food with Belgian children who were growing up in Europe's ferocious war zones.

Read the full article at History News Network

Severe Rains Affect Guatemala: Report from Inside the Country

Imagine living in a community far up the side of mountain, settled deep into areas where there are no longer any roads.  In these areas, when summer comes it is too dry and droughts ensue, ensuring your crops will perish.  When the winter comes, with it come the heavy and unforgiving rains. Anything farmers try to plant will likely be washed away. This is the story of a community we visited this week, where the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has already declared an emergency situation or EMOP.

Imagine another community, best accessible by a one hour boat ride across an expansive lake. This community is prone to flooding, and an emergency is only declared when the water rises 2.5 meters. Before that, community members are accustomed to the knee high deep waters, and the flooding of their homes.  This community lives on the edge of every day, and rains can change everything.

These are just two stories of villages in Guatemala that are living at a tipping point. Their lives depend on reasonable amounts of rain, just enough to grow their food, but not too much to wash away their livelihoods. 

This past week in Guatemala, a group of 8 travelers have been in the Izabal Province to learn more about WFP programs in the area and now, two days after the official end of our trip to the field, we are still in Guatemala.

On Thursday, after a ten hour bus ride, we finally made it back to Guatemala City for a debrief with the WFP Country Director. Until this point, the trip had progressed without a hitch.  We learned about maternal and child health, we learned about Purchase for Progress and questioned why we joined this excursion in the first place.  (For a full recap of the WFP Committee trip, here’s a great summary.)

And then, as we walked to eat a traditional meal, we felt little rocks falling from the sky.  At first it felt like small pieces of hail, and given the constant rain, this explanation made sense. Then we looked again; our outstretched hands were covered in tiny specks of dark gray.  Unsure what to make of it, we kept walking.  In the restaurant a television was on and the news showed images of an active volcano.  The Pacaya volcano, only 20 miles from Guatemala City where we were, was letting out lava and rocks, and ash (more like sand) was falling from the sky. Communities in the immediate area of the volcano were evacuated.  The next day, in clear daylight, we could see the remnants of Pacaya’s activity: the whole city was covered in gray; everything looked like it had a layer of soot. And that was only the beginning of nature’s commotion in Guatemala.

Tropical depression Agatha is now making its way from the Pacific coast inland, and across the country.  The torrential downpours have already reached us, and we’re still at the outskirts of the storm.  The news here has reports of collapsed bridges, overflowing rivers, and the first signs of mudslides. No one yet knows for sure how the storm will unfold in Guatemala, though the government has raised the country’s alert level, and declared a state of calamity. Officially, the rainy season has not even started here. As our group of volunteers deals with one cancelled flight after another, and the possibility of being in-country more than an extra week, we have also been thinking a lot about Guatemalan communities affected by these weather patterns. (As an aside, the group of WFP Committee travelers is safe and well. We are all making the most of our extra days here, and concerned about how this affects the very people we met this past week).

When I think back to the communities I described at the beginning of my post, I’m left wondering, “How will they deal with this tropical storm? Are the communities incommunicado once the floods and mudslides begin?"

When the volcano first erupted, international media was slow to pick up the story. CNN was the first to publish a mini update, but beyond that, Google searches produced little results in the first twenty four hours. Now with the first tropical storm of the season, the news is paying attention, showing images of flooded streets in the capital.

However, before all this began, when the droughts left Izabal with food shortages, and WFP declared communities an emergency operation, there was very little attention. Does it take a natural disaster of this magnitude to bring attention to the needs of Guatemalans?

-Jessica Alatorre
Outreach Associate

Friends of WFP

Hope takes root in Haiti through Food for the Poor project

The charity Food for the Poor issued a press release earlier this month about a special project they are undertaking to help Haiti. The result is going to mean more home-grown food for Haitians.

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World Food Programme issues warning as drought-stricken Sahel enters hunger season

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned of growing needs in the Eastern Sahel region of West Africa, where some 10 million people are facing a challenging season of hunger before the next harvest is due in September.

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World Food Programme asks bloggers to join End Hunger, Walk the World event

We have just launched a new exciting blogging event at wfp.org/bloggers-against-hunger! On June 6 it’s time for End Hunger: Walk the World an annual global event to raise awareness and funds for WFP’s efforts to end child hunger and malnutrition. 

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Thousands Homeless in Tajikistan After Major Flooding

This month's heavy rains and flooding in Tajikistan have killed 40 people, severely injured 85 and left over 4,500 homeless. The flooding has also caused extensive damage to small farms, and over 16,000 farmers and herders may risk falling into poverty and hunger because their crops were washed away and their livestock killed.

The flooding occurred in the Kulyab region of Tajikistan, which was already one of the poorest and most food insecure areas of the country. Nearly two-thirds of Tajikistan's population live on less than $2.15 per day, and the poorest people spend more than 70 percent of their income on food alone.

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) provides regular food assistance to Tajikistan's most vulnerable people, including mothers and young children, tuberculosis patients and poverty-stricken families who are hit hardest by the country's two lean seasons. The agency also provides hot daily meals to some 360,000 children in rural schools, and runs Food for Work programs that encourage locals to build community assets such as irrigation canals. 

Because Tajikistan is prone to natural disasters, WFP also offers emergency food assistance. May's rains were the heaviest in over a decade, and the Tajik government says addressing this disaster will cost $5.3 million. WFP has appealed for $600,000 to fund emergency food relief for those affected by the flooding. 

Donate today.

Learn more about WFP operations in Tajikistan.

-Alli Bailey
Communications Assistant
Friends of WFP

WFP Guatemala: Successes and Needs for the Present

During this past week I have witnessed and learned many important aspects of the United Nations World Food Program's (WFP) efforts all across Guatemala. In this post I am going to focus on a few things which made an impression on me and are impacting people and communities. 

The first is the Mother-and-Child Health and Nutrition Program in the Cumbre Rio Banco Community, which is a success story. In partnership with locally operating nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and the Ministry of Health, WFP has been distributing a micronutrient-fortified blended food called Vitacereal to mothers of undernourished children. A combination of providing this nutritious product, teaching mothers how to properly use it and regular monitoring has succeeded in proper growth for an entire community of children who would otherwise be stunted from lack of proper nutrition. (Stunting can make a child of 7 years the linear height of a 4-year-old and also impede the child's learning ability.)

In another part of Guatemala, the Banadero Colorodo Community, an Emergency Operation (EMOP) is in progress, presenting another side of the picture. Eight acutely undernourished children are being treated with a different product called Plumpy'Nut, which is specifically used to treat acute undernourishment. At the present time five of the eight children have responded positively with a combination of Plumpy'Nut and medical treatment. In total, according to the Guatemalan government's records, up to 42 children may have died already from being acutely undernourished and there are an estimated 1,500 children at risk of death if they do not receive the nutrition they need. I met the father of one child presently receiving Plumpy'Nut from WFP and he said that before WFP started the EMOP there were times there was no food and the only thing to eat was roots.

(Note: An EMOP has a limited duration and funding will be needed to sustain food delivery to this community and many others. WFP cannot meet the needs of more people than it has funding for. Please consider a donation to help this UN agency reach more people in need throughout the globe.)

Another significant and innovative way WFP is building food security in many countries is through the Purchase for Progress (P4P) program. We visited the WFP warehouse in Los Amates where maize is delivered by small farmer organizations. WFP purchases the maize from these farmer organizations and then distributes it to people in vulnerable households in communities where it is needed. 

 In the Corazon de Maize Community, WFP is in a brand new joint program with GrainPro Inc., introducing the newest technology for storing grain: the SuperGranero. This is a hermetic storage device which keeps all insects out and eliminates the need for pesticides or chemicals, thereby making the grain meet organic standards and ultimately more valuable. WFP is also teaching people how to use another innovation called the Blue Box which tests the grain for quality control requirements. By introducing P4P to communities, WFP is improving food security and nutrition for vulnerable households while improving living conditions in rural areas by bringing products to market at a better quality and better profit than the small farmers received previously. With the help of WFP, farmers are able to increase their production.

Once again let me stress that WFP can only address the needs of as many people as it has funding for. The Mother-and-Child Health and Nutrition Program and Purchase for Progress are only two of many diverse aspects of WFP operations and programs which save lives, address hunger and build capacity and food security.

-Blake Parker
WFP Committee of Boston

Doing my part

Today we had the opportunity to visit Panzos and meet some of the farmers that participate in WFP's Purchase for Progress initiative. We were able to sit in on a town hall meeting and observe WFP staff talk about how the program helps the farmers improve their maize and bean crops so that they are able to sell their products directly to WFP. During the meeting, the farmers asked how we (the volunteers) were there to help their community. I was immediately filled with a sense of almost shame. I felt embarrassed that these farmers thought that just because we were the first visitors from another country, that we were important. They believed that we could help their community. I sat there listening to the multiple questions and translations as WFP staff explained our visit and wondered how I could address the question--I'm simply a volunteer with no political power or wealth to donate. Why was I there?

Then I realized that I do have the ability to bring change. I have the ability to reach out to my community, my Members of Congress, my local media. WFP staff explained it perfectly when they said that the farmers have the job of producing the maize and our job is to raise awareness so that we can increase funding for operations in Guatemala, which is suffering from a severe funding shortfall. In that moment, I realized how critical it was that I take this role seriously - that we all take this role seriously.  These farmers believed that we could help their community and I do, too.

-Angie Ross
 State Coordinator for Florida
 WFP Committee Program

Lack of Emergency Funding Poses a Problem in Chad

We last posted an update on the Sahel region food crisis in late April, and one month later, the situation has yet to improve. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that drought and pest infestations have exacerbated food insecurity in the Sahel areas of Chad, leaving 2 million people at risk of hunger.

FAO has received only $2 million of the $12 million for Chad that it requested from donors in November. In contrast, the agency has raised $14.5 million for the neighboring country of Niger, which is also facing a severe food shortage. According to Remy Courcier, FAO's Emergency Unit Coordinator in Chad, this is partially because Niger's government was more proactive in declaring an official problem and reaching out to donors.

Last year's lack of rain in the Sahel region caused dangerously small harvests and the deaths of many livestock. FAO estimates that Chad's cereal production declined by 34 percent compared to 2008, while Niger's declined by 30 percent. More than 10 million people may face hunger in the Sahel region, which stretches across the African continent to include parts of Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia and Sudan.

Officials from the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) are also worried about another recent development in Chad - the government has instructed UN peacekeeping troops to withdraw from the country by the end of the year. For years, tensions between ethnic groups in the north and south have contributed to political and economic instability in Chad. According to Reuters, WFP "said this month Chad would have to provide 'a mobile and efficient force' to protect its convoys," which are often at risk of hijacking.

Learn more about WFP activities in Chad.

-Alli Bailey
Communications Assistant
Friends of WFP

Friends of WFP committees visiting Guatemala to assess hunger crisis

Members of the Friends of the World Food Program (WFP) and their state committees are currently visiting Guatemala to assess the hunger crisis and food relief operations there.

Jessica Alatorre, of Friends of WFP, explains the child hunger crisis in that country. She writes,  "In Guatemala more than 50 percent of children under the age of five are undernourished. Can you imagine? Half of a country’s children might never meet their full potential, simply because they did not have access to constant nutritious food as a child."

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