No Hunger No Waste

As a volunteer, I often wonder how big an impact I am making on the problem. Volunteers have a good understanding of their immediate work and the people they are helping day-to-day. While that is very rewarding, sometimes I wonder how big the problem of hunger really is, and is my contribution (in the form of time or money) a drop in the ocean or a teaspoon in a teacup? I have found some good data sources, which I will study and present in the next few blogs. Today, we look at data from the UN Refugee Agency   - it has collected stats about refugees to/from various countries for the last 60 years. Here are some interesting graphs about USA. There has always been a stream of incoming refugees, with a large increase starting in the 2010s. In the last 60 years, there have been 4.5 million refugees. US population is about 332 million, making refugees ~1.4%, not counting children born into refugee families. These refugees get public benefits for 90 days, after which they are mostly on t...

Hello Everyone Happy New Year! I came across the concept of Right to Food recently, also known as Right to Freedom from Hunger . It is a human right like Right to Life, Right to Education etc. Over 60 countries have it as a Constitutional right, and 160 countries have committed to this right by ratifying  the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.  The Right to Food is not about government providing free food. Rather, it is about food availability, accessibility and adequacy. Also, in times of war or other crisis, when food is not available, the right requires the government to provide food directly.  It is heartening to know that there is an international movement around this because hunger does not discriminate. The United States is one of the countries with no known right to food . That does not mean that we don't have government help available. There are several public programs. For example, at our local Newark Library (37055 Newark Blvd., ...