Our Day to End Poverty
24 Ways You Can Make a Difference
Shannon Daley-Harris, Jeffrey Keenan, Karen Speerstra
- 192 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Our Day to End Poverty
24 Ways You Can Make a Difference
Shannon Daley-Harris, Jeffrey Keenan, Karen Speerstra
About This Book
Our Day to End Poverty invites us to look at the twenty-four hours in our very ordinary days and to begin to think about poverty in new and creative ways. The authors offer scores of simple actions anyone can take to help eradicate poverty.Each chapter takes a task we undertake during a typical day and relates it to what we can do to ease the world's suffering. We begin by eating breakfast, so the first chapter focuses on alleviating world hunger. We take the kids to school--what can we do to help make education affordable to all? In the afternoon we check our email--how can we ensure the access to technology that is such an important route out of poverty? The chapters are short and pithy, full of specific facts, resources for learning more, and menus of simple, often fun, and always practical action steps.Anne Frank wrote, "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." Let's get started. It is our day to end poverty.
Frequently asked questions
Information
PART I
Morning
CHAPTER 1
Break the Fast
Wake-up Call
Imagine ThisâŚ
Getting Off to a Good Start
LEARN
- Read more about hunger in the United States and around the world in Bread for the Worldâs annual report on the state of hunger, which can be downloaded or ordered <bread.org> 17Explore the other resources prepared by the Bread for the World Institute.
- Visit the UN World Food Programme <wfp.org> to learn more about world hunger, what WFP is doing about it, and how you can help.
- Get to know such organizations as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities <cbpp.org>, the Food Research and Action Center <frac.org> the Institute for Food and Development Policy <foodfirst.org>, Oxfam International <oxfam.org>, RESULTS <results.org>, and World Vision <worldvision.org>âall of which have Web sites, reports, newsletters, and conferences that are excellent information and action resources.
- Have some serious fun with children. Download Food Force, a video game developed by the UN World Food Programme to teach children about world hunger <food-force.com>. Players work to get food aid to a fictional country in need, overcoming challenges and discovering the thrill of working to solve a serious global problem.
- Participate in Oxfamâs Fast for a World Harvest to deepen your firsthand understanding of hunger. Involve others by organizing a world hunger banquet to dramatize global food distribution, coordinating a one-meal fast and donating the cost of the skipped meal, or planning a full-day fast and collecting pledges. Visit Oxfam for planning resources.
- Watch the one-hour documentary Silent Killer: The Unfinished Campaign Against Hunger (2005) with family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, or members of your place of worship and talk about how you can respond <silentkillerfilm.org>.
- 18Gather a group from your religious community to study hunger and your faith traditionâs response. Use resources prepared by your religious body or other resources such as Hunger No More, Bread for the Worldâs curriculum for churches and synagogues, and materials from MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger <mazon.org>.
- Refer to community kitchens instead of the more dated term soup kitchens, which conjures up stereotypes of who is hungry and what is served. Community kitchens reminds us that we are all part of a community and that this is where some in our community come for a free, nourishing meal and others provide food from their own overflowing pantries and gardens.
- Check out the other chapters in this book that discuss various aspects of hunger: chapters 6, 9, 10, and 17.
CONTRIBUTE
- Click on <fighthunger.org> or <thehungersite.com> to help feed a child. Itâs free, it takes only a few seconds, and you can do it every day. You click, and Web site advertisers contribute.
- Help the UN World Food Programme feed more hungry people. Every dollar donated for emergency operations can provide one day of food rations for a family of four (in some countries each dollar feeds even more). For instance, just $99 donated can purchase five thousand cups of rice to feed an entire community or support recovery projects in which food aid is used to pay people to rebuild their communities in the wake of humanitarian tragedies <wfp.org>.
- Donate food to community food pantries to meet the urgent needs of hungry people living in the United States, including 13 million hungry children. Find a local food pantry by entering your ZIP code at Americaâs Second Harvest, the nationâs largest network of food banks <secondharvest.org>.
- Engage school, community, and religious groups in events such as Church World Services CROP Hunger Walk <churchworldservice.org/crop>, Share Our Strengthâs Great American Bake Sale <strength.org>, and The Souper Bowl of Caringâs Souper Bowl Sunday <souperbowl.org> to raise money or collect food for programs serving people who are hungry.
- Spur donations of good, leftover food. Encourage restaurants, hotels, caterers, and even universities to donate usable food instead of throwing it away. Done right, it does not violate health code guidelines. For more information about the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act of 1996, which protects donors from liability, go to the Americaâs Second Harvest Web site <secondharvest.org>.
- Lend a hand. Volunteer at a local food bank or other program that serves people who are hungry. Visit <secondharvest.org> to find a local food bank or food rescue organization that can use your help.
- Start or help strengthen a food pantry, community kitchen, or other emergency feeding program, with help from World Hunger Yearâs resource Serving Up Justice: How to Design an Emergency Feeding Program and Build Community Food Security <worldhungeryear.org>.
- Write letters to your newspaper and your members of Congress to focus their attention on hunger crises and urge immediate responses to provide humanitarian assistance to ward off starvation and promote long-term solutions. The organizations listed in the âLearnâ section provide information and sample letters.
- Encourage teachers to present lessons on hunger. Check out the resources from Feeding Minds, Fighting Hunger <feedingminds.org> and a high school curriculum from kNOw HUNGER <knowhunger.org>.
- Organize World Food Day <fao.org> activities in your community to help people learn more about causes of and solutions to world hunger.
LIVE
- Serve at least one meatless dinner a week, using nonanimal sources of protein that require fewer of the worldâs resources to produce, or commit to another lifestyle change regarding all the foods you eat: avoid overpackaged foods, or become a âlocavore,â buying your food from local sources.
- Assess how much food is wasted in your household and find a way to reduce it.