My essential question is, how does a non-profit organization implement a sustainable solution to ending hunger and poverty worldwide? The first source I read was a recently published article on Concern Worldwide, a non-profit similar to The Hunger Project that works to end hunger and poverty in 23 countries across the globe. The article, “With hunger levels rising, can we still achieve zero hunger by 2030?”, by Cian Purcell-Milton, focused on how hunger has been on the rise since 2015 and discussed various sustainable methods to ending hunger. According to a recent UN report, 820 million people do not have enough food to eat. The reason behind the rise in hunger in recent years is a rise in conflict, instability, and climate change. Although world leaders agreed to end hunger by 2030 through the creation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, achieving this goal is proving to be an immense challenge.
Similar to The Hunger Project, Concern Worldwide believes that a sustainable solution to hunger must be holistic and must address agriculture, food, health, water, sanitation, education, and other relevant sectors in different policy domains. Concern Worldwide supports hungry communities by training them in essential business and technical skills, coaching and mentoring, and facilitating access to financial services. The organization also runs agriculture programs that promote agriculture that sustainably increases productivity and resilience. Overall, this article helped me answer my essential question because it provided me with a new perspective on how a non-profit can implement a sustainable solution to hunger and poverty. Since I have been interning at The Hunger Project for the past four weeks, I have learned a lot about how one single organization addresses hunger and poverty. However, I haven’t thoroughly examined the initiatives of other non-profit organizations. This source helped broaden my perspective.
My second outside source is a 2011 ted talk titled “Ending Hunger Now,” by Josette Sheeran. Although this ted talk is nearly a decade old, it confirmed my understanding of global hunger and poverty and the strategies for ending them. My main takeaway from this source was when Josette introduced the idea of a food bank. Instead of simply shipping food to communities struggling with hunger, creating food banks run by local people is a self-sufficient and effective approach to reducing hunger in rural communities. In addition, this ted talk raised the question: What if we view hungry people as the solution to ending hunger instead of helpless beneficiaries? This question is exactly what The Hunger Project believes is the true solution to ending hunger. Instead of simply handing out food and aid each year, non-profits can provide the environment, training, education, and resources for women and men to grow crops, expand their businesses and ultimately feed their own communities. I found this ted talk to be really interesting because it gave me another perspective on ending hunger and poverty, while also confirming a lot of the methodology I have learned through my internship.
Sources:
Article: https://www.concern.net/news/hunger-levels-rising-can-we-still-achieve-zero-hunger-2030
Ted Talk: https://youtu.be/CdxVbUja_pY