AMMAN (JT) -- The UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Thursday urged Jordanians to walk together on May 21 to call for an end to child hunger.
The "Fight Hunger: Walk the World" march, held under the patronage of Princes Basma, will start from Al Hussein College in Jabal Al Hussein at 10:00am today and end at the Amman Citadel.
Around 2,500 UN staff, and representatives of ministries and private companies are expected to take part, according to a WFP statement.
The WFP and its partners are mobilising hundreds of thousands of people worldwide in what will be the most comprehensive and diverse demonstration in history focused on hungry children and the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of hungry people globally by 2015.
More than 700,000 people in over 100 countries across 24 time zones are expected to walk five kilometres to highlight the battle against child hunger, the statement said.
This number includes children throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America. Some 100,000 children are expected to walk in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. Most of these are beneficiaries of WFP's School Feeding Programme, the statement said.
By walking, these children are joining a growing chorus of voices across every demographic and every region of the world saying that it is unacceptable that 300 million children are chronically hungry in the world today.
Hunger is the biggest threat to health. Last year, more people died due to hunger and malnutrition than from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined, according to the WFP.
The event, initiated three years ago by express, mail and logistics services provider TNT, is the primary organising vehicle to engage citizens globally in the struggle to achieve an end to child hunger and the first Millennium Development Goal.
"Fight Hunger: Walk the World is about creating a movement to end child hunger," said Arlene Mitchell, director of Walk the World for WFP.
"By engaging citizens from rich and poor countries alike, governments worldwide will heed the call, and will do more to end child hunger. Without citizen action, the status quo will remain. But with it, we can help end the unnecessary suffering of children," she added.
Beginning in Auckland, New Zealand at 10:00am, and occurring sequentially for 24 hours across 24 time zones, the walks are as diverse as their locations. More than 70,000 school- children are expected to walk in Liberia, thousands are expected to converge near Red Square in Moscow, in Tanzania, an intrepid group of climbers will scale Mount Kilimanjaro, in Nepal, a WFP staffer will plant the Walk the World flag at the top of Mount Everest, and in Brazil the government has adopted Fight Hunger: Walk the World as part of the country's "Fome Zero" campaign.
Two successful, large-scale activities aimed at reducing child hunger are Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition projects which focus on pregnant and lactating women and young children, and school feeding projects which provide nutritious food for school attendees, the statement said.
Last year, over 200,000 people in 266 locations raised enough funds to feed 70,000 children. This year Walk the World, aims to raise $5 million for WFP's global school feeding programme, which plans to reach 50 million schoolchildren by 2008.
In Jordan, the School Nutrition Programme (SNP) was initiated in 1999 to boost the health of impoverished students suffering from severe micronutrient deficiencies.
The SNP provides schoolchildren with a mid-morning snack consisting of a 200-millilitre carton of UHT milk, 70 grammes of high protein biscuits fortified with vitamins A, D and iron, in addition to a piece of fruit.
The programme, overseen by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, will cover all first to sixth grade schoolchildren in the country by the end of 2008.
© Jordan Times 2006
