All Blog PostsThe World Food Program launched the Billion for a Billion online campaign to appeal to one billion internet users to give $1 a week to feed a billion hungry people.
Click Here to Find Out How YOU Can Help Stop World Hunger While Surfing the Net
The UN uses red cups to hand out free school meals to children around the world. Whenever Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), travels for WFP she has a red cup in her luggage. It was handed to her shortly after she joined WFP in 2007. Scratched on the bottom of the cup is the name “Lily” The cup has become a powerful symbol of the difference that filling a cup with food can make in a hungry child’s life. On the eve of the 2009 World Food Summit in Rome the United Nation’s World Food Program announced its Billion for a Billion campaign to get one billion internet users to click on the red cup and donate to the growing number of hungry people. For the first time in history this year the number of hungry people worldwide will exceed one billion.
One Billion People Face Starvation
“If a billion Internet users donate a dollar or a euro a week, we can literally transform the lives of a billion hungry people across the world,” said Josette Sheeran (WFP). Since donor governments are under enormous financial pressures due to the economic crisis, the United Nations is calling ordinary citizens to help feed the world’s hungry. “You can fill the cup of a hungry child with the simple click of a mouse,” Josette Sheeran says. Internet users are called to use Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness about the funding shortfall.
Drought in the Horn of Africa Leaves 23 Million Hungry
Years of drought and war, high food prices and the global financial crisis have made the Horn of Africa one of the most critical hunger areas in the world, with more than 23 million people not getting enough to eat. The World Food Program will need $1 billion to provide food aid in the next six months in the region that includes Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, Uganda and Djibouti. More than half of the hungry are in Ethiopia, and include some 4 million to 5 million children under five.
- Millions are fleeing the drought areas in Ethiopia. Their crops withered, their animals died.
- Somalis are facing their worst humanitarian crisis in 18 years fleeing the fighting in the country. One in five Somali children are malnourished.
- The drought has forced four million Kenyans to rely on donated food and water.
Citizen Action is Powerful
Ordinary citizen were instrumental in bringing down the Berlin wall, giving women the right to vote and banning the use of landmines in most parts of the world. The “Billions for a Billion” campaign is designed to connect the “well-fed”and “the hungry”, demonstrating how small donations can make a big difference in the lives of the hungry poor. The WFP, founded in 1962, predicts it will feed around 100 million people this year in 72 different countries. This amounts to an estimated 28 billion meals.
The above Article was written by: Christine Welter
How YOU Can Help
You can help to fill the red cup by visiting wfp.org. Another way to help, which is easy and does not cost you anything, is to use the Dreamer.Me browser. For more information on how to donate to world hunger simply by using your browser, please click here.
