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This coming Friday, October 14, UGA
will celebrate World Food Day (WFD) with an event that will include both
participation in the WFD Teleconference, “Reflections on
fighting hunger: Roads not taken; goals not met; the journey ahead,” with
food activist Frances Moore Lappé, and the presentation to the campus community
of CARE-UGA, a new student organization involved in education, advocacy, and
action in international development and the fight against global poverty. Students are encouraged to come,
find out more about CARE-UGA, and get involved, even if they cannot stay for
the whole duration of the program. Participation is free and food will be
provided. Location: Conference room, Edgar L.
Rhodes Center for Animal and Dairy Science (see map and bus
routes) Time: Friday, October 14, from
11:40 a.m., to 3:20 p.m. For more information, please contact
Dr. Maria Navarro, at mnavarro@uga.edu, or (706) 583 0225
Additional information: The teleconference “Reflections on
fighting hunger: Roads not taken; goals not met; the journey ahead,” will
review a 60-year battle for food security for all. Sixty
years ago, the United Nations the Food and Agriculture Organization were
founded. For six decades, the leaders of the nations of the world and civil
society have worked through these and other global institutions to put an end
to hunger. However, in spite of conferences, summits, declarations, and
countless books and speeches, even the conservative goal of cutting hunger in
half has not been achieved. One of
the voices on the front lines for more than 30 years has been Frances
Moore Lappé, author, critic, and food-for-all activist. Ms. Lappé will be
the special guest on this year’s conference, giving her perspective on the
human-made causes of hunger and the significance of our everyday choices in
creating a world free of hunger. In addition, Dr. Pedro Sánchez, co-chair of a UN task force that recently issued an important report on world hunger, World Food Prize laureate, and winner of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” award, will make a live appearance from the Prize ceremonies in Iowa. Further, there will be taped cameo commentaries by Ambassador Tony Hall and Dr. Wangari Maathai, the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize The WFD Teleconference will emanate from Washington DC and will reach more than 1000 sites worldwide. It is organized by the US World Food Day Committee, composed of 450 non-profit organizations.
(source: U.S. National Committee
for World Food Day) A long-time food activist, Ms. Lappé is the author of Diet for a Small Planet, a book that has sold in the millions worldwide since its first printing in 1971, its sequel, Hope’s Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet, and more than a dozen other books. Many of her books have been used in a broad array of courses in hundreds of colleges and universities and in more than fifty countries. In 1987 in Sweden, she became the fourth American to receive the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes called the “Alternative Nobel” for her “vision and work healing our planet and uplifting humanity.” Ms. Lappé has received numerous other awards including the Rachel Carson award, and seventeen honorary doctorates. In 1975, with Joseph Collins, she launched the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First) to educate about the causes of world hunger. The Institute has been described as one of the nation’s “most respected food think tanks.” In 1990 she co-founded the Center for Living Democracy, an initiative to help make visible and accelerate the spread of democratic innovations “in which regular citizens contribute to problem solving in all dimensions of life.” As she has said, “Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but by a scarcity of democracy.” (source: U.S. National Committee
for World Food Day) |