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In a world in which almost 10 million children under the age of five die every year from the effects of hunger and from preventable diseases, we cannot afford to ignore the impact of the global food crisis.
Concern Worldwide is already responding to the food crisis in some of the worst-affected countries. While our focus today—in the short term—is on saving lives, we also need to ensure that people are able to feed themselves tomorrow—for the long term.
Today
In the short term, the poor are in urgent need of emergency supplies of food—or cash with which to buy food. Concern is:
- Delivering food, water, fuel and other vital supplies to 3 million people who do not have enough to meet their basic survival needs
- Treating more than 325,963 severely malnourished children and pregnant and breastfeeding women in 13 of the worst affected countries through our Community-based Therapeutic Care (CTC) program, which provides treatment and ready-to-use therapeutic food
- Monitoring the impact of the food crisis through our early warning system to ensure that we are reaching populations before they become malnourished
Tomorrow
Fighting hunger requires more than food rations. Empowering people in the poorest countries to grow and manage their own food supply is critical, as are the efforts of the international community to tackle the root causes of the crisis by investing in the ability of poor countries to support themselves. Concern is:
- Increasing food production among small-scale farmers by distributing seeds, fertilizer and farm tools, giving them access to credit, improving irrigation systems, and providing agricultural training
- Helping the urban poor earn more income to buy food by giving them access to loans and savings facilities, and offering training in skills such as carpentry or tailoring
- Investing in basic education to ensure that the next generation have the literacy and numeracy skills they need to earn a decent living
- Raising international awareness of the devastating impact that the food crisis is having on people living in extreme poverty—we will ensure that the voices of the poorest are not ignored so that funding is available to help prevent these crises by investing in disaster risk reduction programs
Join Concern’s Team Today:
Register as an individual for the Empty Plate Campaign.
Register as a team for the Empty Plate Campaign.
Sponsor a participant in the Empty Plate Campaign.
Donate now to the Empty Plate Campaign.
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