What's On & Expat - Philippines

Don’t we all wish at times that the problems of this world could be eliminated with just a wave of a magic wand, the way fairy godmother solved Cinderella’s problem by transforming her rag of a dress into a stunning gown? Many people don’t know it, but helping ease child hunger in the world actually comes close to being this simple.

               One Big Fight
    Fighthunger.com is a website that campaigns against child hunger by providing the latest information on this agendum worthy of international focus. The site also makes available different ways by which interested parties could take part in this global fight.
    Every year, UN World Food Programme (WFP) with TNT Express, the world’s leading business-to-business express delivery company, as well as other partners and sponsors, take to the streets a powerful message: Child hunger has no place in this world, and collectively, even ordinary citizens can put an end to it. They declare this stand against child hunger in a campaign called “Walk the World”.
   “Fight Hunger: Walk the World” is a worldwide demonstration where people from all over the globe walk through a 24-hour period, in each of the planet’s time zones. The Walk aims to end child hunger in every nation by 2015, an initiative in line with the first UN Millennium Development Goal “To reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by year 2015”.
    The first ever Walk the World was held in 2003 when TNT employees in Asia walked the length of the Great Wall of China to raise awareness and funds in support of WFP’s School Feeding Programme. Awareness is especially important among policy makers and government officials, of

both poor and rich countries, as these are the people with the capacity to prioritize funding for
the assistance of 400 million children around the world who are needlessly suffering from hunger. The event also gives avenue for the contributions of local companies and private individuals. Funds raised become funding for projects that assist hungry children, such as the WFP’s global School Feeding Programme.
    The Walk attracted so much attention and response during the first year that TNT decided to expand it in 2004. That year, more than 40,000 people walked in over 70 countries in all 24 time zones, raising enough money to feed 30,000 children.
    In 2005, WFP and TNT jointly ran the event for the first time. They invited people from the business, academic, religious and political sectors, as well as both celebrities and civilians, to join their global day of action. The response was more than 200,000 people walking in 266 locations in 91 countries, raising enough money to allow 70,000 schoolchildren to receive free school meals for one whole year!
     TNT’s involvement in this global fight against child hunger actually began when, during one plane trip, TNT CEO Peter Bakker chanced upon an appalling statistic in an In Flight magazine article. According to the article, one child dies every 5 second because of hunger. And the reason is not really the lack of food. Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Anan even said that for decades, there has been enough food in the world to feed everyone. In fact, in the 1990s, global poverty dropped by a whopping 20percent! The reason for the frightening death rate is not that there is not enough food, but that people cannot access food.

 This is true for areas ravaged by conflict, war and natural disasters.
    Alarmed that such a condition persists in this age of 3G mobile phones and open-heart surgery, Peter Bakker had an idea: why not lend TNT’s express and logistics expertise to bring the food supply exactly where it is needed? And so the program Moving the World began, which is actually moving the food into parts of the world in dire need of it, through the help of TNT.
     Filipinos Walked the World
  Last July, TNT Express Philippines, held its very own Walk the World at the SM Mall of Asia in Roxas Boulevard.
“Raising awareness for children to have enough food to make them educated and useful citizens is a good way to promote country development,” sighs UN WFP Country Director and Representative Valerie Guarnieri who joined the walk together with UN WFP Deputy Country Director Alghassim Wuire TNT express Worldwide Phils, Inc. Jose Luis Romero Salas and hundreds of TNT employees. She describes the WFP-TNT team-up as a natural partnership.
Meanwhile, Romero-Salas said that the partnership was a fantastic opportunity for TNT to use its express and logistics background to help the UN agency.
               A Click Away
   The United Nations World Food Programme, the largest humanitarian agency in the world, allows just about anybody who knows how to log on to the Internet to help battle global child hunger. By visiting their Fight Hunger website at www.fighthunger.org, and clicking the orange-colored bar which says “Feed A Child”, one prompts a UN WFP partner to donate USD0.19 (about PhP9).

The figure seemingly spells little difference, but it’s actually the cost of feeding one school child for a day, through UN WFP’s global School Feeding Program. That means, for just USD34, a hungry child in school gets fed for an entire year.
    In a year, UN WFP assists an average of 90 million people across the globe in meeting their nutritional needs.
This includes 56 million children in more than 80 of the world’s poorest countries. Through its global School Feeding Programme, WFP tries to reach all 800 million hungry people around the world, of which half are children. The agency brings beans, rice, oils, salt, fortified food mixes and other food items to the these people who are unable to  access food due to reasons like abject poverty, civilian conflict and natural disaster. By clicking on the “Feed A Child” button, people encourage greater funding for the programme, which translates to more lives saved from hunger all over the world.