Hunger Banquet

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Hunger Banquet

• Oxfam America

Text extracted from Oxfam Hunger Banquet materials
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Introduction

• The world grows more than enough food to feed
  everyone, yet
• More people are hungry today than ever before
• an estimated one billion,
• one in five persons worldwide
• One of every three children is chronically
  malnourished
• too hungry to lead an active, healthy life

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Introduction

• One-third of the grain grown in the world
• and one-half of the fish caught
• are fed to animals in rich countries
• U.S. daily per person calorie supply is 3,671
• almost twice that of Sudans 1,974
• fewer calories than needed to maintain a
  productive life

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Introduction

• Sub-Saharan Africa
• 1 in 3 people are malnourished
• half live on less than 1 a day
• 30 million people required emergency food aid
  (2005 )

Niger
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• The roots of hunger lie in
• Poverty, war, and the unequal distribution of
  resources,
• Not in Overpopulation.
• Many well-fed countries have more people than
  hungry ones.
• Holland
• a high-income country
• has over 1,000 people per square mile
• Mozambique
• one of the worlds lowest-income countries
• has only 48 people per square mile

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• The roots of hunger lie in
• poverty, war,
• unequal distribution of resources
• Not in Natural Disasters.
• Five years of drought in California
• resulted in no direct loss of human life.
• Five years of drought in Ethiopia
• over a million people died

San Francisco
Ethiopia 1983
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Oxfam Hunger Banquet

• Everyone on earth has the same basic needs
• only our circumstances differ
• where we live and the culture we are born into
• Some are born into relative prosperity and
  security
• While millions are born into poverty
• by no choice of their own

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The High Income Group

• If you ended up in the high-income group
• You represent the 15 percent of the worlds
  population
• fortunate enough to afford a nutritious daily
  diet
• You live primarily in countries like
• the United States, Australia, France,
  Switzerland,
• most countries in Western Europe

Relative World Wealth
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The High Income Group

• As members of this group, you share the following
  characteristics
• Your average income is over 9,076.
• The leading cause of death among you is heart
  disease and diabetes
• directly related to your over-consumption of
  fatty foods
• particularly red meat

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The High Income Group

• Health care is more readily available to you.
• In the U.S. there is one doctor to every 470
  people
• compared with one doctor per 7,140 people in
  Haiti
• In general, your children are healthy and your
  infant mortality rate is low
• Though you are well-off, millions of your fellow
  citizens live below the poverty line.
• Most of them are women and children who lack
  access to adequate services.

Haiti
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The High Income Group

• You could be
• Jennifer, an attorney
• who lives in an affluent suburb of Boston
• with her husband, an accountant, and two
  children.
• Shinji, a well-traveled Japanese engineer
• who lives in a comfortable one-bedroom apartment
  in Tokyo

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The Middle Income Group

• Those in the middle-income group represent
  roughly 25 of the worlds population.
• There are more countries in this group than in
  the high-income group
• countries like Bolivia, the Philippines, Turkey,
  Costa Rica, and Iran

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The Middle Income Group

• What are your common characteristics?
• Your average income ranges from 912-9,095.
• Your children are six times more likely to die of
  hunger and related diseases than if they lived in
  a high-income country
• You must use 35 of your income to feed yourself,
  compared with the 15 people in high-income
  countries spend
• Your economies are crippled by foreign debt.
  Debt payments can consume half of your
  governments earnings

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The Middle Income Group

• You could be
• Simcha, a man in his thirties, who operates a
  postcard stall in the ancient city of Jerusalem
  to feed his four children
• Lucia, a schoolteacher in Prague, in the Czech
  Republic
• who takes in sewing to earn extra income to
  support her aging parents and her children

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The Low Income Group

• You represent the majority of the worlds
  population.
• You live in countries where the average income is
  less than 912 a year.
• Somalia, Honduras, India, and Vietnam are among
  the countries in this group

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The Low Income Group

• As a member of this group, you share these
  characteristics
• You are chronically malnourished and eat only
  2,205 calories a day
• less than the amount needed to lead a healthy,
  hard-working life
• You cannot afford to own or buy land
• even land farmed for centuries by your ancestors

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The Low Income Group

• You may work on a hacienda or large plantation
• that produces crops such as bananas, sugar, and
  coffee
• for export to high-and middle-income countries
• yet you and your family dont get enough to eat.
• The combined debt owed by all of your governments
  to wealthy nations totals 1.3 trillion
• more than 200 per person
• and continues to rise inexorably.
• Unemployment and hardship in the rural areas is
  driving you into cities
• where you face even greater hardships

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The Low Income Group

• You could be
• Farida, who lives in India where the forests have
  nearly disappeared.
• Her people have become nomads, wandering in
  search of the water needed for sustenance.
• Pierre, a farmer in Haiti who rents a hillside
  plot for his landlord.
• In the dry season when nothing will grow, he
  will make charcoal to sell for the price of a few
  days food