The solution to combatting hunger seems simple — get food to people in need when they need it. And while we have answered the call time and time again in response to crises and humanitarian need, supporting food security requires much more than filling people’s bellies.
Food security exists when people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to adequate and nutritious food so they can live healthy and productive lives. When individuals and families have access to food, are educated about nutrition and how to be healthy, and can grow more crops and sell more harvests, they can be self-sufficient and resilient to future crises.
1. Donate full items
There are lots of local organizations that will take food donations. They will then distribute those food items as needed. This is safest and easiest for you and these organizations will know the best ways to get the food to those most in need. There are lots of foods that are good to donate but canned food and a smaller portion of healthy, fresh food is best. Ask your local organization for what they need most.
- If you have a membership to a bulk foods store like Costco, this is a great place to pick up food for donating. You’ll get more food for your money and it tends to be the kind of easy to store items that work well for distributing to the needy.
- Local churches, soup kitchens, shelters, and even government organizations will take donations of food to redistribute to the needy. Find one that matches up with who you’re looking to help.
2. Take food directly to those in need
You don’t need to wait for a food shelter in order to distribute food items to people that you know are in need. Buy healthy food that doesn’t require anything to be prepared and take it to homeless people that you see in your daily activities. For example, buy a bunch of bananas and hand them out to the homeless people downtown.
- Another common demographic of people that go hungry are the elderly. Older people living on their own often have limited money and may not be capable of cooking very much for themselves any more. If you know someone who’s very old and might struggle making themselves a good dinner, offer to bring and have dinner with them every now and again.
- Good examples of foods to take include: sliced soft apples (like Gala), whole bananas, a portion of a loaf of whole grain bread, pop-open containers of tuna, soy nuts (bought in bulk, these a quite cheap and they contain a massive amount of nutrients in a very small serving), and pre-cut carrots (cut as thinly as possible).
3. Buy fair trade
Items marked Fair Trade with the international Fair Trade symbol are a great way for you to help feed other people while you eat. How? Fair trade items are bought from producers, like Guatemalan farmers, at a price that is fair for that region. It means that the company buying the goods also invests money in those communities to improve their lives, education, and access to supplies. This means that these people will have more money with which to buy things like food for their families.
- Buying a lot of items like this also sends a message to companies. As consumers, we can use our money as our voice. If enough people are buying these kinds of products, then more of them will be offered.
4. Teaching shared responsibility for health and nutrition
Educating people on proper nutrition, sanitation and hygiene so they stay healthy is crucial to addressing food insecurity. For example, lack of safe drinking water and poor sanitation and hygiene can lead to waterborne diseases and chronic intestinal infections, robbing children of their potential and keeping farmers from tending to their fields.
Health and nutrition efforts take root when people adopt the right behaviors, such as washing their hands before preparing food. Trainings can empower all household members to share in these responsibilities. In some communities, this has changed the social dynamics in a family, making the distribution of household duties more equitable between men and women.
For example, in Zimbabwe a forward-thinking group of men now collect water for the family — traditionally a woman’s role. They have constructed latrines and handwashing stations, and are training others on proper handwashing and the need to use soap or ash in addition to water.
5. Urban farming
Almost one-quarter of undernourished people live in an urban environment. Recently, there has been a big push for urban farming. Urban farming empowers families to gain control over their own food source.
6. Social change
This is extremely hard and will not take place overnight. However, many social issues, such as war, pose a fundamental problem to halting world hunger. Ideally, this will happen when world powers, such as the United States and many western European nations, choose to focus on solving these issues instead of exacerbating them. However, this can only start when people in developed nations begin to care about those issues as well and pressure their governments to be productive in ending conflict.
7. Empowering women in agricultur
Likewise in Uganda, where men typically raise livestock and keep the sales, women are challenging traditional gender roles by learning goat herding skills and generating incomes themselves.
Empowering women to start businesses can help ensure their families earn enough money to put food on the table. In Haiti, female farmers who were once chronically food insecure can now feed their families, expand their businesses and save for their children’s futures. In Senegal, rural women are getting the tools they need with USAID’s help to grow, share, and sell more nutritious food for better health and extra profit.
REFERENCES :
https://www.wikihow.com/Take-Action-to-End-World-Hunger
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/5-ways-usaid-helping-end-world-hunger
https://borgenproject.org/10-ways-stop-world-hunger/
https://www.wfp.org/stories/10-ways-feed-world
