Name: Bayo Maathey

Social Justice Group: 2021-2022, Access to Healthy Foods

Date of Fieldwork: April 20, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s):WQED Pittsbrugh – Our Food Insecurity Crisis

Type of Fieldwork: Documentary

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :

On Wednesday, April 20 my group watched a documentary about the issue of food insecurity in Pennsylvania. The video was made by WQED Pittsburgh, a youtube channel with 20,00 subscribers. In the video they talked about how being food insecure can stem from multiple things and it can happen in the blink of an eye.

A lot of the things the documentary spoke about were devastating but understandable. They said that Covid had hit and their access to food became limited. One of the main speakers on the show had a car accident a few years ago and due to that she and her husband were practically put on bed rest which made accessing food a lot more challenging and difficult. Another family talked about how when covid hit they lost their job therefore losing their weekly wages and weren’t able to provide food for their children which made them feel like they weren’t providing as a parent. I could never imagine how difficult that must be just to think about how disappointed one might be in themselves because they can’t provide for their kids. It’s just absolutely devastating.

Even though this documentary had a sad tone I truly enjoyed watching this video and thought it was super informative and interesting. Not only did it give us information but it also gave us perspective about a subject that we haven’t experienced first hand because of our privilege. But it also taught me what I can do to help, like volunteering, packing bags of food and more. Overall I thought this video was excellent.