World Food Day
11.10.2023
Reading time
2 minutes
The annual celebration symbolically draws our attention to problems related to the availability and quality of food that ends up on the tables of people around the world. And although food production is on an unprecedented scale, there are more and more regions on Earth whose inhabitants do not benefit from the effects of progressive development.
The reasons for this include land conflicts, which force families to abandon their possessions, and sudden changes in weather, with the resulting droughts and floods. In many cases, both problems are closely related – decreasing resources in one area force people to take drastic steps. Even though we produce enough food for everyone on the planet, one in ten people goes to bed hungry every day.
Malnutrition is particularly dangerous for pregnant women and children, whose bodies become susceptible to diseases. At Saint Luke’s Hospital in Waliso, Ethiopia, we run a therapeutic nutrition project for children under 5 years of age. In the newly renovated Therapeutic Department, we provide specialized care at the stage of initial treatment, transition period and rehabilitation. The health condition of children receiving therapeutic nutrition is constantly monitored, and young patients receive full medical care free of charge.
Hunger is not only a lack of food, it is also an impoverishment of the diet, its maladjustment to the child’s developing body. Families who not long ago could grow ingredients for their own meals now have no local plants at their disposal and are dependent on more expensive goods imported from abroad. Meanwhile, there is a war at both ends of the supply chain – the one in Ukraine and the one in Ethiopia – Małgorzata Olasińska-Chart, project coordinator in Ethiopia.
— Małgorzata Olasińska-Chart, koordynatorka projektu w Etiopii.
The three-year drought became one of the reasons for the outbreak of the war, which stopped the development of the country, which until recently was considered a model for overcoming the crisis. As inflation increases, household debt also increases, forcing residents to abandon their possessions in search of opportunities to earn money. All their problems travel with them – the omnipresent threat, hunger and uncertainty of tomorrow.
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