While the idea of every person in the world having enough to eat is not an outlandish hope, the process to get there seems to be never ending and at times, mostly a losing battle. Long-time Covenant World Relief partner, Bread for the World, has spent many years focused on this very issue and at times it can be overwhelming to read the numbers:
Worldwide, 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty-on less than $1.25 per day. There has been a reduction of more than 34 percent in global hunger since 1990.
More than 4 million Syrians, more than half of them children, do not have enough to eat in the midst of the country’s civil conflict.
Millions were left hungry, desperate, and homeless in the Philippines following Typhon Yolanda in Nov. 2013.
An increase in the global population to 9 billion people by 2050 will require a 70 percent increase in agricultural production.
There are still an estimated 868 million people (for the period 2010 to 2012) who are undernourished and more than 100 million children under age five who are undernourished and underweight.
More than one in seven Americans- including nearly one in four children-live below the poverty line ($23,283 for a family of four with two children).
I look at these numbers and am floored; utterly stunned. It is simply overwhelming to the point that the numbers just kind of wash over me. They remain numbers instead of lives. I can easily spend $10 a day on food; about 10 times the amount of money people around the world live on daily.
Bread for the World believes in the power of advocacy. Every year, they have a letter campaign. People from all over the country send letters into government representatives to encourage change in resources like foreign aid. There is a great deal of information provided by Bread for the World about government funding and what it means in the lives of millions. I would encourage you to read, to learn, to write, and to advocate. This isn’t a crazy dream; ending world hunger is a possibility.
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