Do you know that currently, there is actually ENOUGH food to feed EVERYONE on this planet?
And, do you know that there are still more than 20,000 people dying of hunger every day?
Data on 7:12 pm 10/16/2011
If there is enough food to feed everyone, then why are there still people dying?
The answer is politics. Without a fair government, there isn't sufficient food to reach the people at the lowest level. Ultimately, rich people still rule over the roost of poor. [1] [2]
Fortunately, there are groups that are active in changing that. One of them is Stop Hunger Now. I had the privilege to join them in one of their food-packaging event. Apparently this event has been held successfully elsewhere for quite some time.
Stop Hunger Now website
The plan is simple. Get a large enough venue, get a large enough crowd of volunteers, and Stop Hunger Now will provide with the ingredients and items to pack the food into packets, which will then be put into boxes, and then transported over to places that need help.
Date: 16 Oct 2011, in honor of World Food Day
Venue: Taylor's University (four campuses around Klang Valley)
Goal: 1 million meals packed
Beneficiaries: Somalia and local feeding programs in Malaysia
Ray Buchanan, founder and president of Stop Hunger Now, up on stage giving the volunteers pep talk before the start of the event. You can see the four campuses real time through the webcam. It was fun to see students from other campuses proudly showing us their progress throughout the event.
Volunteers come in all ages. Even kids as young as eight was seen helping. Everyone is required to wear a hair net or cap and use hand sanitizer to ensure the hygiene of the food packaged.
The procedure is easy. Take a packet, put in the vitamin pack, put the packet under the funnel, put in a spoonful of dried vegetables, a cup of dried soy, and a cup of rice...
...then a runner will bring the packet to the sealing team (Puta is in this picture, he's the stupid-looking one :p), who will weigh and seal the packets...
...which will then finally be packed into boxes.It's all very organized, and it certainly works. If you strain hard enough, you can make out a gong on the stage, which was hit (by a kid in our venue) to announce every 1,000 boxes packed.
I think that day, we astonished the Stop Hunger Now team, because we reached our goal ahead of time. And I mean really ahead of time. We were hearing the gong once every 10-15 minutes. They even had to politely stop us, because they want to give the chance for other volunteers scheduled after us. Actually, everyone was having so much fun that we were reluctant to actually stop!
Puta and I only worked for one hour and half, which was pretty short. We'd actually wouldn't mind doing longer shifts, but apparently we hit our targets far sooner than expected, so we were allowed to end earlier. Of course it was a wonderful experience, one that I wouldn't mind doing again soon. Anyone want to join us on the next round?
