Here's How You Could Actually Help Eradicate World Hunger

Everyone has experienced a bit of hunger – stomach rumbling, mouth watering, feeling hangry – but real hunger is about much more than skipping breakfast and only having a packet of crisps for lunch.

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Around the world 815 million people haven’t got enough food to live healthy lives. That’s a CRAZY number. Although sometimes the sheer scale of global hunger makes us feel pretty helpless, things are actually improving. In fact Rise Against Hunger, an international hunger relief organisation, just launched a new global campaign today called This Is Possible and it’s all about how we can actually all help to eradicate it for good… by 2030!

What are the stats?

The 815 million means that around 1 in 9 (11%) of the entire population haven’t got enough food to live healthy lives, and 160 million children around the world suffer from long-term undernutrition.

But here’s the good news: since 1990, the amount of people suffering from hunger has actually gone down by 196 million and, in developing regions, the number of undernourished people has decreased by 20%.

What is malnutrition?

Organisations like Rise Against Hunger don’t just tackle hunger but malnutrition. There are two sides to it. On one side there’s starvation, where people can’t get nutrition due to a lack of food. The other side is when people are malnourished due to not being able to access healthy food, only unhealthy food. You can be obese and still suffer from malnutrition.

Malnutrition in all its forms directly affects 1 in 3 people.

What harm does hunger do?

Hunger is especially harmful to babies because they’re still developing. It’s vital that they get nutrition in their first 1000 days because without it their growth becomes stunted, they find it difficult to learn properly at school, and they’re more vulnerable to illnesses.

Children who grow up hungry are less likely to succeed at school, college, and work as adults - which leads to a whole host of life problems. Hungry girls and young women also give birth to underweight babies.

What can we do to help eradicate hunger by 2030?

Hunger is an issue that often makes us feel helpless, because we think there’s nothing we can do that will actually make a difference.

Well that’s not true. Apart from donating to Rise Against Hunger, you can go onto their site to make a pledge, create a puzzle on their site and post it to social media (every time you do they make 6 meal donations), and you can also organise (or encourage your school/ college to organise) a meal packaging event, which could make a huge difference to someone who’s suffering from malnutrition and hunger. Click here for more ways to help.

Through raising awareness and playing our individual part we can all help to change the world together, one small step at a time. We’ve got twelve years to eradicate hunger… bring it on.