Beneath Nigeria’s prosperity and abundant fertile expanse lies a big problem – hunger. Across the length of the nation, it is estimated that 2 out of 5 children in their formative stages go to bed without food. Hunger is a condition that occurs when an individual barely has enough food to eat to satisfy the body’s nutritional needs. In context, it is chronic, disastrous and portends grave danger for any community.
The World Food Day is celebrated every yearto heighten conversations around this condition, proffering solutions and advocating Government’s support towards fighting the scourge. From Italy to South Africa and our country Nigeria this year’s event was no less different with various activities to mark the day.
Amidst the social media razzle-dazzle, influx of photos depicting solidarity that the fight against hunger is on a constant decline, gradually in the past weeks the world slippedback to its personal concerns whilst an estimated 795 million people of the 7.3 billion people in the world or one in nine, suffer from chronic undernourishment and bringing it home, an estimated 617,000 children in Northeast Nigeria are suffering from acute malnutrition.
Clearly, a day set aside by the United Nations to raise awareness on the fight against hunger is not sufficient as there is need for a renewed commitment towards achieving the world goal of zero hunger by 2030. Everyday, we have a responsibility to feed the future and improve food security lest we risk a stunted, malnourished world.
Every year, the significance of the World Food Day celebration is often lost the morning after because we put in all our energies to raise awareness on the challenge of hunger for that day and return to the status quo forthwith. Hunger is a prevailing issue, a cankerworm that claims lives on a daily basis which means we have to fight back with equal (maybe even more) tenacity as well daily. It begins with making a commitment to another human being, reaching out on our own and supporting already established organizations that work tirelessly to reach thousands and millions of people.
FoodClique Support Initiative a hunger relief NGO has spearheaded some of the mostyielding campaigns on hunger eradication as well as create a framework for the actualization of this set goal. However, this article is not aimed at outlining FoodClique Support Initiative notable achievements rather;it is a clarion call to every one person to remain steadfast in the pursuit of completely quashing out hunger.
So World Food Day is over, what next? What did we glean from the celebration? How can we utilize the resources we have to achieve the goals set before us? What viable steps can we take every day to ensure that children in a remote village somewhere sleep with smiles on their faces because they no longer have to fight hunger alone?
The answers to the questions above lie within our zeal to continue in the struggle against hunger before and after October 16. It is a universal goal that involves you and I reaching out first to the people in our world who battle this menace of hunger and then to others we might never get to meet. There are children out there who did not feel the impact of World Food Day because a day in 365 days is not enough to reach everyone but with organizations like FoodClique Support Initiative that have great programs and volunteers, you can be rest assured your contributions will make the right impact.
The miles to ending hunger is far, millions of malnourished persons exist today world over, what is required of us is not what we can do on World Food Day alone, it is what we can do NOW!!! Today, tomorrow, next week and every day of the year. Remember, if you cannot feed a thousand people, just feed one.
Joy Iwesu(iwezujoy@gmail.com) writes from Lagos, Nigeria
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