Giving thanks to those who harvested the food on our plates today

Community Engagement Intern Brittany Collins

Happy Thanksgiving!

As we take today to indulge in a delicious meal with our closest friends and family and reflect on what we are most thankful for, let us consider where the food on our plates has come from.  Think about the farmers that nourished their crops so that they could be on our plates today.  How many of us actually know where our food comes from? 

Say it with sweet potatoes - "don't uproot foreign aid!"

Today and in coming days Congress is debating cuts to life-saving foreign aid, and Oxfam volunteer leaders are delivering petitions to save foreign aid to Senate offices along with an unusual twist:  sweet potatoes.  Why sweet potatoes?  Because this Thanksgiving staple is also a feature of aid programs that boost nutrition in Africa. 

 

A special orange-fleshed variety (conventionally bred) is rich in vitamin-A and drought resistant.  Promoting it in place of less-nutritious varieties in communities in Africa has helped boost immune systems, prevent blindness, and improve livelihoods for growers.   (A keen-eyed foodie will know that those pictured above are actually yams doing their best sweet potato impression.)

But this noble root is just one out of hundreds of such simple, cost-effective projects that are saving lives and livelihoods around the world - and funded by US foreign aid programs like Feed the Future!  

So before scooping brown sugar, pineapple, and marshmallow on top of yours, grab a few extra and get in touch with Oxfam community leaders in your area.  Join them in delivering this letter to your Senators along with a petition signed by more than 20,000 people nationwide. 

  
  
  
  

Happy Thanksgiving, all!

SF Bay Area Oxfam Action Corps Hunger Banquet and "Africa's Last Famine" Screening

Congratulations to the San Francisco Bay Area Oxfam Action Corps on their successful Hunger Banquet and film screening of "Africa's Last Famine"!  

Posted 11/15/2011

This past weekend we held a Film Screening and Hunger Banquet in Berkeley. Thank you to all who attended! We had an educational and inspirational evening!

The evening started with remarks from Thao Nguyen, a local musician and Oxfam Sister on the Planet. We then viewed "Africa's Last Famine", a new film co-produced by LinkTV and Oxfam America. If you haven't seen the film, it'savailable online and worth watching, as it addresses the ongoing food crisis and famine in the Horn of Africa and provides examples of innovative programs that are working to give poor farmers resilience to survive and thrive during droughts.

We then moved on to the Hunger Banquet. From the start, the inequalities were evident, as only three people sat at a decorated table with place settings while most were sitting on the floor. The high income received a nutritious and gourmet meal, and middle income ate rice and beans. The majority in the low income group on the floor were served last and only had rice to eat on corn husks--no plates, no utensils. After eating, guests shared heartfelt comments about poverty and hunger. Simulating global inequalities within physical proximity made the experience very impactful for many. Several chose to act immediately by writing letters to our Senators. Thank you to those who wrote letters--we'll be hand-delivering the 11 letters soon! And everyone signed the petition asking Congress to fully fund poverty-focused aid in the upcoming budget decisions.

If you missed the event and want to take action, please consider the following:

1) Sign the online petition

2) Write or call your senator. Email us if you want help wording your request.

3) Give back this holiday season with Oxfam America Unwrapped

4) Attend Seeds of Resistance on December 6, by Women's Earth Alliance

5) Visit the Revolution Hunger website

Special thanks to Cancun Sabor Mexicano, Stella Nonna, and Gather for food donations and to Women's Earth Alliance and Revolution Hunger for partnering with us!

Oxfam America Hunger Banquets throughout the U.S.!

Another amazing blog post by Drew Love of the Boston Oxfam Action Corps!

Think Fast, Imagine 1.85 Billion Hands 

by: Drew Love 

Can you imagine my two hands? Of course you can. They look, by all accounts, similar to your two hands. Although I don’t trim my nails as often as I should, and I’m terrible at moisturizing. But for the most part, you can imagine what a pair of hands looks like. 

What about your hands and my hands? The mental arithmetic becomes slightly more difficult, but not terribly so. Yet at some point, if we continue to add pairs of hands to this mental image, there comes a time when you reach the limit of your imagination. We can only imagine so many hands at a time, and it’s usually a very small number. 

So if I ask you to imagine 1.85 billion hands, is it even worth the question? 

And if I tell you that those 1.85 billion hands are a part of the 925 million people who went hungry last year, can we really understand the scope of that hunger?  

The challenging part is that even if we could understand the depth of that problem by reading a statistic, we would reach that understanding alone, most likely in front of our computers and in silence. 

Now that’s depressing. 

But there are better ways to understand the challenges we face. The most visceral form of learning is to go through an experience, not just read a statistic. The most empowering way to resolve a challenge is to do it with a sense of community, not in isolation. 

So would you like to learn about hunger in the only way we can, by experiencing it? And would you like to learn about it in the only context that will ever create a solution, with a community? 

We ask you to become part of that experience, part of that community, and part of the solution of reaching out to those 1.85 billion hands, so that 925 million people no longer have to go hungry. 

Learn more about this experience: host your own Hunger Banquet and attend Boston's Action Corps Hunger Banquet this weekend. 

 In addition to Boston's Action Corps Hunger Banquet, there is an upcoming Oxfam America Hunger Banquet hosted by the Madison Oxfam Action Corps.


The Oxfam Action Corps teams in Minneapolis, Chicago, and San Francisco have already hosted powerful Hunger Banquets this season, as has Iowa, pictured here.  

Find an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet in your area in the ACT FAST calendar, Change the world. Start here.  

Act now! Deep budget cuts put millions at risk

The senate is getting ready to vote on amendments to the budget, and the proposed cuts to foreign assistance could cost lives.

At risk: Programs that put 33 million kids into classrooms. Funding that has boosted food production in parts of sub-Saharan Africa by 400%. Projects that help tens of millions survive natural disasters and violent conflict.

Will you help fight for life-changing programs like these?

Please call your senators today and send a clear message: OPPOSE amendments that cut poverty-fighting foreign assistance.

On the Senate's slash and burn list: Aid for disaster victims. Programs that put kids in classrooms. Food security and hunger prevention programs. Call your senators NOW and tell them not to cut foreign assistance. Use the instructions below to make your call, then tell us how it went.

Here's how to make your call:

1. Call your senators and tell the person who answers the phone your name and where you're calling from.
   [Find phone numbers for the Senators of the 112th Congress]
2. Tell the staffer: "My name is __________, and I'm calling from _______ to ask my senator to oppose amendments that cut foreign assistance programs. Don't try to balance the budget on the backs of the world's poorest people. It's not right or fair. These programs give poor people the tools they need to help lift themselves out of hunger and poverty. With high food prices and extreme weather events threatening millions, now is not the time to disrupt life-saving work around the world. Please oppose amendments that cut foreign assistance."
3. Once you've ended your calls, click here to tell us how they went!

These cuts won't solve our budget crisis but they could make the difference between life and death for many of the world's poorest people. Will you take a minute right now to make the call?

Thanks in advance for your time – your words will make a big difference in this fight.

Sincerely,

Judy Beals
Oxfam America Advocacy Fund