In August 2023, BGR Board member Ayyā Dhammadīpā and Deputy Director Patti Price visited new BGR program partner the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB). Based in northeast Washington, D.C., CAFB was founded in 1980 and presently has 350 partners across the region, in the city as well as in southern Maryland and northern Virginia. They operate 315 direct distribution sites at schools, community centers, and churches, among other locations.
From left to right: Nia Davis (of the Food Bank), Ayyā Dhammadīpā, Melanie Minzes (also of the Food Bank), and Patti Price.
Over the course of two hours, we toured the massive facility, where groups of volunteers (school age through older adults) helped to pack boxes of food destined for community-based distribution sites and the homes of seniors and disabled people. We also visited their onsite garden and met the full-time garden manager, whose staff consists entirely of volunteers. Last year, the garden provided 45 percent of CAFB’s fruit and vegetables; this year, they’re aiming to increase that number, to grow 50 percent of the programs’ produce. CAFB’s overall focus is on nutrition, with at least 70 percent of distributed food qualifying as “wellness food”—that is, food high in fiber, but low in salt and sugar.
In the 2023–2024 project year, BGR is helping to fund two programs with the Capital Area Food Bank:
(1) A food and health project with the Children’s National Hospital.
The food bank established an on-site food pharmacy at the National Children’s Hospital in Washington to meet the needs of food-insecure diabetic children and their families. The majority of children with Type 2 diabetes live in two poor D.C. wards where 80 percent of the city’s “food desert” neighborhoods are located. During children’s stay at the hospital, families receive nutrition training in a new Diabetes Ward kitchen. Upon discharge and after follow-up visits, the children’s families receive a 35–40 pound food box containing fresh produce, whole grains, lean proteins, reduced fat dairy, canned fruits, vegetables, and a nutrition toolkit with recipe cards.
This year, CAFB and the Children’s Hospital are launching a three-year study to measure medical outcomes in children with Type 2 diabetes. Two hundred families will be identified for the project, each receiving weekly food deliveries for twelve months followed by a six-month follow-up to assess durability of impact. BGR’s grant will help fund the healthy groceries for this project.
2) Addressing child food insecurity.
As 60 percent of children in the region qualify for free or reduced meals, schools are a daily source of proper nutrition. However, because these children remain food insecure in the summer, a BGR grant supported summer meals at one of 74 playgrounds in D.C.
We are glad to support this new partner in providing critical nutrition-focused programs to improve the health of ill and underserved children in the greater D.C. region.
Ayyā Dhammadīpāis a BGR Board member and the founder of the Dassanāya Buddhist Community in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a fully ordained bhikkhuni in the Theravāda tradition and a Dharma Heir in Soto Zen. In addition to English, Ayyā teaches in Spanish, an expression of her Latin heritage.
Mumina Afyarow is a 29-year-old widow and mother of three. Because of malnutrition, she has no milk left to breastfeed her infant daughter. The drought killed her beloved donkey and goats, which were her family’s only source of income and food. So, Mumina left her village of Garasweyn and walked eleven miles with her children on her back to a displacement camp. But the camp doesn’t have enough basic supplies to care for everyone, so Mumina sold the only bucket she had for $1.50 to buy food. (Action Against Hunger, February 2023, Proposal to Buddhist Global Relief)
This sorrowful story, like a thousand others, emerges from the Horn of Africa as it faces its worst drought in forty years. In the past three years, this region has suffered five failed rainy seasons, and meteorologists predict a sixth in the coming months. Climate change is likely influencing these conditions. Across the region, more than 36 million people are threatened by the drought, with its predictable catastrophic consequences: the death of 9.5 million livestock, the drying up of the wells upon which human survival depends, the spread of disease, the migration of untold numbers of people desperate for food and water, and the terrible toll of human suffering and death.
In response to this unfolding tragedy, Buddhist Global Relief is partnering with five international organizations to provide emergency relief in the Horn of Africa: Action Against Hunger, CARE, Oxfam, UNICEF, and the U.N. World Food Programme. This assistance is targeted to reach the populations in the region most severely impacted by hunger.
SOMALIA Action Against Hunger reports that Somalia faces the worst levels of acute food insecurity since the reporting of malnutrition rates began. Approximately half of all Somalis are facing food insecurity and 8.3 million are already at imminent risk. Since last year, there has been a 52 percent increase in nutrition admissions to stabilization centers and 1.8 million children are likely to suffer acute wasting from malnutrition by July 2023. As of the first quarter of 2023, almost 40 percent of Somalis are acutely food insecure, and 320,000 face catastrophic hunger with a risk of famine (IPC5), the most severe and life-threatening classification of hunger. Drought conditions and violent conflict displaced 1.6 million people in Somalia between January and October last year. During the same period, the number of children admitted for treatment for severe wasting increased by 67 percent compared to 2021.
ETHIOPIA Ethiopia continues to be hard hit by drought. Its population is facing exceptionally high levels of hunger due to the five consecutive failed rainy seasons. The compounding impacts of multiple crises that confront these people include drought, localized floods, and a two-year running armed conflict that exacerbates the causes of malnutrition. In just the past three years, the number of people in Ethiopia needing food assistance has almost tripled, from 8.4 million in 2020 to 24.1 million in 2023. Nearly three-quarters are women and children.
The majority of the population in the Somali, Oromia, Sidama, and Southern Nations, Nationalities & Peoples’ regions rely on pastoralism, one of the most ancient forms of subsistence living. Without water, their animals die, depriving these families of their only source of income. Some four million livestock are believed to have died due to the current drought conditions; millions more are very weak and emaciated with no or little milk production – the primary source of nutrition for children. Meteorologists predict below-average rain for this coming spring rainy season – perhaps no rain at all – shattering all hope of relief.
These conditions also impair education and threaten the future of hundreds of thousands of children. Two thousand schools have closed due to drought, affecting 648,000 students as families are displaced or can no longer afford school fees. It’s estimated that an additional 4,558 schools are at high risk of closure.
KENYA The failure of the past five rainy seasons has forced Kenya to declare a national disaster. Nearly a million Kenyan children already suffer from acute malnutrition and are in urgent need of life-saving treatment. Across the country, 3.1 million people face acute hunger and the country is suffering a 70 percent drop in crop production.
SOUTH SUDAN
In South Sudan, the promise of a better life following its attainment of independence has disappeared. Ten years after the ostensible end of the civil war, the country has plummeted into an unprecedented hunger emergency. This year almost 8 million people – about 63 percent of the population – will probably face crisis levels of food insecurity. As a result of limited funds and rising costs, three out of four households in crisis are unlikely to receive any food aid. Without a scale-up of food and nutrition assistance, and without unhindered humanitarian access, parts of the country risk famine. Inadequate funding for safe water and sanitation is contributing to outbreaks of cholera and other diseases.
CARE has declared a Type 4 crisis in South Sudan – the most severe on its emergency scale – and urgently sought funds for lifesaving food and nutrition assistance. Funds are also needed to address poor water quality and supply, sanitation, and hygiene.
“Eleven-month-old baby Chigoah Gai has just been admitted to the inpatient therapeutic feeding program supported by CARE in Bentiu hospital. He is frail, struggling for breath, with his tiny ribs showing. A clear case of severe acute malnutrition. His grandmother looks worried. Baby Gai has been vomiting and had diarrhea for the past six days. He weighs just 4.6 kg. (10 lb., 2 oz.). Unprecedented flooding forced his family from their home and meant they couldn’t get enough to eat or clean drinking water, causing him to deteriorate. His grandmother says, ‘The baby was used to milk but now all cattle have moved very far away. I sometimes give him goat’s milk but it’s not enough. The baby’s mother left him behind after seeing that we don’t have enough food to eat. She left to look for something, but she never came back. I don’t know where she is.’”
In recent months South Sudan’s precarious humanitarian situation has worsened. Violence and conflict persist; the country faces a sharp increase in food and fuel prices, exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Climate shocks create the worst of both worlds: localized flooding and drought. An estimated 2 million people, including 1.3 million children under the age of 5 and 676,000 pregnant and lactating women, are expected to be at risk of acute malnourishment. Especially in internally-displaced persons camps and settlements, infectious disease outbreaks are contributing to an ongoing rise in morbidity.
Buddhist Global Relief responded to these terrible conditions by inviting its five NGO partners to submit proposals for emergency funding. Each of these organizations – esteemed for their regional expertise, resources, and rapid-response capabilities – provided BGR with proposals that identified the most effective way to utilize our contributions in addressing these interrelated crises:
• $50,000 to Action Against Hunger’s water and food security emergency responses in Somalia, which incorporates the provision of water vouchers, sanitation services, and hygiene kits as well as direct cash assistance, cash for work programs, livelihood inputs, and financial support provided via micro enterprises and Village Savings and Loan Associations. • $50,000 to CARE’s nutrition emergency response in South Sudan, which includes screening and treatment of children suffering from malnutrition; CARE’s food security emergency response includes food/cash distribution to the most vulnerable households (restricted, unconditional cash) as well as distribution of agricultural and vegetable kits. • $50,000 to Oxfam America’s crisis response in Ethiopia, which focuses on food security, including in-kind food distributions and unconditional cash transfers so basic needs can be met; distribution of seeds and tools; and rehabilitation of water systems. • $50,000 to UNICEF’s emergency programs throughout the Horn of Africa. Addressing household water insecurity is the core driver of UNICEF’s regional drought response in 2023. Additionally, UNICEF’s support of critical nutrition activities includes: (1) procurement, prepositioning, and distribution of therapeutic supplies for children; (2) support for the prevention and treatment of acute malnutrition; and (3) promotion of appropriate nutritional support for mothers, infants, and young children. • $100,000 to the U.N. World Food Programme’s drought response plan in Somalia, which has been providing relief food assistance to 4.4 million beneficiaries each month. WFP has 12 offices in Somalia and works in partnership with over 100 cooperating partners (85 percent local NGOs) and over 1,490 food retailers across the country.
These grants, totaling $300,000, collectively represent the largest emergency donations package for Africa in the history of Buddhist Global Relief. Each of these partners has committed to providing BGR with reporting sufficient for us to be accountable to our donors and to provide our supporters with appropriate information about the efforts these funds are supporting.
We are deeply thankful to each and every person who has supported BGR’s work, and we are grateful for each and every donation. Each supporter and each donation directly contributes to our efforts to reduce suffering. Recalling once again the Buddha’s statement that “hunger is the worst illness,” BGR’s leadership, staff, and volunteers remain grateful for these opportunities to help those in need.
For more than 30 years, the Asociación Grupo de Trabajo Redes (AGTR) has helped children in Peru empower themselves and escape child labor. A grant from BGR supports AGTR as it works to develop educational opportunities for girls in San Juan de Miraflores, one of the poorest districts of Lima. Over 55 percent of the people there live in poverty, and 10 percent live in extreme poverty; more than 80 percent of the children and adolescents have worked as child laborers. Child labor has a lasting effect on those involved, denying or delaying educational opportunities, exposing children to emotional and physical health risks, depriving youth of recreational and social activities, and putting them at greater risk for sexual abuse and trafficking.
Some families in poor neighborhoods in and around Lima see domestic labor as a chance to improve the lives of their children. Employers claim that they will provide educational opportunities to children, and that they will be welcomed into a loving household environment as “godchildren.” In reality, however, the children never become part of the families they serve. They devote their time to cooking, cleaning, gardening, and caring for young children. These affluent children often learn to objectify and abuse the child domestic workers by watching the actions of their parents. All the while, the young domestic workers are losing contact with their own families and communities and are falling behind educationally—often up to three years behind their peers.
AGTR offers a range of programs to help support former child workers and prevent other girls from becoming involved in child labor. Funding from BGR supports workshops that explore health, self-esteem, and communication and emphasize the importance of education in building future opportunities. In addition, AGTR provides food baskets to families who participate in the program and school supplies to students, helping alleviate some of the stresses that push children into domestic labor. The project currently serves 30 students.
The program stresses the importance of education and helps children cultivate a stronger sense of personal worth and self-esteem. AGTR relies on the experiences of former child workers to develop its programs, allowing them to celebrate the strength and perseverance of child workers without stigmatizing them while recognizing the dignity of their labor. “I felt very good,” one explains. “It is the first time that I hear that our work is very good, that we each have our stories as domestic workers: some are very ugly, but we’re strong enough to move on.”
Between 2012 and 2017 AGTR created five youth groups in poor communities around Lima. Led by former domestic workers, the youth groups provided tutoring and mentoring support for at-risk youth, and gave children a voice as AGTR worked to improve its ability to help children. The project in San Juan de Miraflores began at one of these youth centers.
Etsi is one of the children served by an AGTR youth center. She moved into a wealthy home in Lima, Peru, to work as a domestic servant when she was a child. The family refused to pay her for seven of the nine years she worked for them, and denied her basic rights granted to workers. After leaving the family Etsi made contact with AGTR, which helped her understand her experiences and reconsider the value of domestic workers.
COVID-19 has created challenges for AGTR’s programs. The lockdown has increased adult unemployment, heightening the risk that children will enter the workforce. Children who remain in school risk falling behind due to disrupted schedules. Although schools in Lima offer virtual classes, the range of subjects is limited and many students do not have reliable internet access. Officials have tried to fill this gap by sending assignments and relying on the government television program “I Can Learn at Home,” although many families feel the program is of limited value. Before the pandemic, AGTR offered tutoring services at their community center. Tutoring sessions helped students whose parents were unable to help them with homework, and gave them an extra edge in more difficult Math and English classes as they moved into high school. AGTR hopes to resume meeting face-to-face with students at its venue in the near future.
Government agencies have stepped in to provide additional support for families in the area during the lockdown. For example, San Juan de Miraflores lacks running water. Prior to the pandemic, families would buy water from trucks or fill jerrycans and portable tanks outside of the neighborhood. The lockdown cut household income and made it harder for families to meet vendors. The municipal government has agreed to cover the cost of water for residents during the crisis.
AGTR has continued delivering baskets of food to each of the 30 girls participating in the program, and staff members use the opportunity to meet with students and their families. Thanks to additional donations from friends and former volunteers, AGTR is also able to give food to other children in San Juan de Miraflores. This allows families in the district to pool their resources and prepare large common pots of food that are shared with the community. “Solidarity,” AGTR observes, “is a great resource in these difficult times.”
Shae Davidson holds a PhD degree in American history. His dissertation research explored the importance of inclusive community partnerships in building food systems. He has served as a museum director and taught history and public policy.
In late April, BGR’s Board approved 51 projects with potential partners around the world. These grants for BGR’s fiscal year 2021-22 amounted to $969,000. The Board provided $60,000 in additional emergency assistance to regions afflicted with the Covid pandemic–most in India–pushing BGR’s grant total to over $1,000,000.
During the weekend of April 23–25, 2021, the Buddhist Global Relief Board and staff members met via Zoom to review 51 project proposals from potential partners around the world. By the weekend’s conclusion, all of the projects for BGR’s fiscal year 2021-22 had been approved, with the Board awarding $969,000 in grants. The $400,000 increase compared to the previous year was made possible by several extremely generous donations we received over the past year. Decisions by the BGR Board in May to provide $60,000 in emergency assistance to regions afflicted with the Covid pandemic–most in India–pushed BGR’s grant total to over $1,000,000.
A majority of BGR’s projects are renewable projects with existing partners. Through the years, these projects have proven to be successful and aligned with BGR’s mission of fighting hunger, supporting sustainable agriculture, educating children—especially girls—and providing opportunities for women to start livelihood projects to support their families.
The projects support partners operating in countries around the world, among them Nicaragua, Peru, Haiti, Brazil, the United States, Uganda, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Malawi, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Afghanistan. Notwithstanding the challenges caused by the pandemic, most of the partner organizations have reported that they are staying on track with their goals as they adjusted their operations to ever-changing conditions.
This year, the Board approved eight new projects, half of which introduce new organizations into BGR’s circle of worldwide partners.
Each CAMFED Association member, on average, supports three more girls to go to secondary school, and rallies community support around the most vulnerable.
CAMFED, one of BGR’s new partners, is more formally known as the Campaign for Female Education. An international non-governmental, non-profit organization, CAMFED’s mission is to eradicate poverty in Africa through the education of girls and the empowerment of young women. CAMFED programs operate in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania, and Malawi. BGR awarded CAMFED a grant to address the urgent needs of female students in Malawi, one of the least developed countries in the world. For most families in Malawi, school costs are prohibitive and thus poor children, especially girls, often lack opportunities for education. The grant from BGR will support the education and basic nutritional needs of 1,333 girl students in Malawi.
In Myanmar, BGR’s new partner is New Eden Charity Foundation, which will provide school supplies to about 800 children of families in the Chin State who have been internally displaced due to the heavy fighting in the region.
Mahabodhi International Meditation Center(MIMC) is a new partner in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, India. MIMC operates a school for disadvantaged boys and girls from remote parts of the region. Thus far, every year during the admission period, MIMC’s selection committee has had to turn away many deserving boys simply because the present boys’ hostel can only accommodate 100 children. BGR’s grant will support the construction of a new hostel to accommodate an additional 80 boys. This will make a difference not only to the students but to their families and communities.
BGR will join an existing partner, CARE, in a new project this year that will expand a university scholarship initiative for female high school graduates in Afghanistan’s Khost province. More than 866,000 adolescents in Afghanistan are out of school, including 622,084 (71.8 percent) girls. Since 2012, CARE has helped more than 300 young women to continue their education, and as a result, the graduates have found job opportunities allowing them to support themselves and their families. This grant will provide scholarships to an additional 100 young women for the coming academic year.
Uganda Buddhist Centre is another of BGR’s existing partners. This year, in addition to the current UBC Peace School, the organization is introducing a new project to provide hunger relief for orphans in Bulega Village, Entebbe. In this Ugandan village, many children have been orphaned or abandoned due to HIV/AIDS, poverty, conflict-related violence, inadequate healthcare, neglect, and exploitation. This project will provide two nutritious meals a day for about 20 children for a year. The program also offers emotional support, yoga classes, and mindfulness training for the children.
A partner from earlier years, Sri Lanka’sKaruna Trust was awarded a grant to support the professional training of fifteen girls from low-income families to become graphic designers, a profession in high demand in Sri Lanka. Karuna Trust has run similar programs in the past, and all the graduates are either well employed or running their own businesses. BGR has also given Karuna Trust an emergency donation to provide dry food rations to families negatively impacted by the corona pandemic.
Karuna Trust hunger relief sponsored by BGR
A longtime BGR partner, Oxfam America, was awarded a grant for its new project supporting women’s livelihood support and climate-smart agriculture in Uganda. This project aims to benefit 200 women and men farmers and their families by training them in climate-resilient agricultural practices and business skills related to farming, purchasing tools, and planting seeds for home consumption and income.
Finally, the Sahuarita Food Bank and Community Center, located in southeastern Arizona, is a second-year beneficiary of BGR funding. A BGR grant last year supported the construction of the center’s new facility with a commercial kitchen and classroom. This year, BGR is supporting a pilot project in which women will be trained in food preparation and other skills needed to operate a small food business.
Feeding hungry children at Sahuarita Food Bank
BGR expresses its deepest gratitude to all its generous donors who allow us to continue our work of helping to relieve the suffering of the most vulnerable among us.
Kate Zemlo Rivas is a volunteer at BGR. She lives in Sacramento, California, and works for the University of California, Davis. Kate is awaiting admission to the California Bar and is hoping to practice in the area of human rights and continue supporting the immigrant community. She has been a student of Buddhism for over ten years.
A grant from Buddhist Global Relief to the What If Foundation supports the Lamanjay Food Program in the Ti Plas Kazo community of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. The program serves up to 800 free meals each day at the Lamanjay community cafeteria and also provides lunches for 350–400 students and staff of the Father Jeri School in Port-au-Prince.
Awaiting distribution of the meal
Five-year-old Riber Jean has been eating at the Lamanjay Food Program since he was born. He loves eating at the cafeteria—which is only a few blocks from his home—with his mom and younger sister, and looks forward to a chance to see his friends.
Lamanjay is the co-creation of the Berkeley, California–based What If Foundation and the Na Rive community development program in Haiti. Over the last twenty years, the two groups have worked closely together to develop Haitian-led programs to provide food assistance, educational opportunities, and disaster relief to the residents of Port-au-Prince’s Ti Plas Kazo community. For the children and families served by Na Rive’s community cafeteria, the meals provided are often their only food of the day.
The United Nations World Food Programme describes Haiti as having one of the highest levels of food insecurity in the world. Half of the population was undernourished in 2018, and 22 percent of Haitian children are chronically malnourished. The situation facing children in Port-au-Prince has worsened since a political crisis began in 2018, which saw shortages of water, food, and fuel, as well as rising violence and increasing inflation. Over the past year, the Covid-19 pandemic and rising food prices have made Na Rive’s Lamanjay food program more critical than ever.
A grant from Buddhist Global Relief has allowed the What If Foundation to continue supporting the Lamanjay Food Program. The support helps purchase food and cooking supplies, provide stipends to workers who prepare and serve meals, and pay for storage space for dry goods.
The community cafeteria serves up to 800 meals each day. The program also provides lunches for 350–400 students and staff members of the Father Jeri School, which was partly furnished and equipped with BGR assistance.
Na Rive continues to support the needs of community members who have been displaced from Ti Plas Kazo. In 2016 the government dismantled the tent camp created for survivors of the 2010 earthquake, forcing families to move far from Ti Plas Kazo. Na Rive opened a food pantry where displaced families can pick up rice and beans to cook at home. The pantry supplies up to 60 families each week, saving them from having to walk miles back to the neighborhood’s community cafeteria.
In 2020, Lamanjay’s three programs served approximately 5,000 meals per week. Over the course of the twenty years that Na Rive and the What If Foundation have worked together to serve the people of Port-au-Prince, they have provided over 5.5 million meals.
Jeanty Simon enjoys a meal
The food program also nurtures a stronger sense of community. Lamanjay provides a welcoming space for residents of Ti Plas Kazo. Rolande, a 7-year-old who relies on Lamanjay, said, “I feel safe and happy here.” Many people who benefit from the project volunteer to help support it. The What If Foundation and Na Rive celebrate this spirit of communal effort, seeing it as an essential part of creating a feeling of togetherness and a valuable tool for helping residents and program workers build a more secure community. This sense of engagement and local ownership has led beneficiaries to share the story of Na Rive, putting more families and children in contact with the group.
This emphasis on safety and inclusion has helped Port-au-Prince residents like 4-year-old Jeanty Simon. Jeanty used to live in downtown Port-au-Prince with her grandmother, parents, and siblings, but the family moved to Ti Plas Kazo to escape the growing influence of gangs in their neighborhood. Jeanty’s father had to abandon his job, and the Lamanjay program helps the family make ends meet while providing a safe, welcoming space as they resettle.
Margaret Trost, a business owner and young mother, founded the What If Foundation in 2000 with human rights activist Father Gérard Jean-Juste. Jean-Juste saw child nutrition as the first step on a path leading to education, opportunities for growth, and more vibrant communities. As they began organizing in Haiti, Jean-Juste and his supporters found inspiration in the Creole saying, “Piti piti na rive”—”Little by little we will arrive.” The expression reflects the group’s belief in the power of small acts of love to improve lives.
Community organizer Lavarice Gaudin became the leader of Na Rive following Father Jean-Juste’s death from leukemia in 2009. He has skillfully guided the Lamanjay Food Program as well as the education and relief projects the What If Foundation funds in Haiti. Catherine Lelong, interim executive director of the What If Foundation since the spring of 2019, is of Haitian descent. A graduate of the London School of Business’s MBA program, Lelong has used her skills in nonprofit marketing and strategy to work with Na Rive and donor groups like Buddhist Global Relief to help the Lamanjay Food Program continue to serve the people of Ti Plas Kazo.
Riber Jean, 5, has been eating at the Lamanjay Food Program since infancy
Support from Buddhist Global Relief allows the What If Foundation to give families and children vital resources, helping build a better future for residents of Ti Plas Kazo who rely on the Lamanjay Food Program. The What If Foundation projects that the grant from Buddhist Global Relief will allow Na Rive to reach 22,000 people, continuing a sustainable, community-based food program that helps families most in need. According to the foundation, the partnership “provides the children not only the food to survive but the knowledge that they are not alone and that there are donors in other places who care and stand in solidarity with them.”
Shae Davidson holds a PhD degree in American history. His dissertation research explored the importance of inclusive community partnerships in building food systems. He has served as a museum director and taught history and public policy.
Food insecurity, a more expansive hardship measure than hunger, has been at the highest level since annual records began in the mid 1990s, including after the Great Recession. Illustration: Michelle Thompson/The Guardian
An investigation into food poverty by the Guardian and the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at Northwestern University found gaping racial inequalities in access to adequate nutrition that threatens the long-term prospects of a generation of Black and brown children. Black families in the US have gone hungry at two to three times the rate of white families over the course of the pandemic.
The Guardian analysis found:
Hunger – defined as not having enough to eat sometimes or often during the previous week – has been reported between 19% and 29% of Black households with children over the course of the pandemic. This compares with 7% to 14% of white American families.
Latino families have experienced the second highest rates of hunger, ranging from 16% to 25% nationally.
Racial disparities varied across states: Black families in Texas reported hunger at four times the rate of white families in some weeks, as did Latinos in New York.
Overall, hunger declined sharply last month, but is falling far slower for people of color.
Since the start of the pandemic, hunger in America has soared amid mass layoffs, nationwide school closures, and political infighting over relief packages. Black and Latino families have gone hungry at much higher rates than white and Asian Americans – in large part due to longstanding racial economic inequalities that have never been addressed. As states reopen and Biden’s aid package reaches those in need, the hunger rate is falling at a slower pace for Black and Latino Americans than white households.
Why have Black families experienced hunger at much higher rates than white families? The pandemic exposed and exacerbated existing economic inequalities. In 2019, the unemployment rate for Black Americans was double that for white Americans. Black workers on an hourly rate were 26% more likely than white workers to be on or below the $7.25 federal minimum wage.
Families with children have suffered most. Overall, the rate of hunger for families with children has been on average 61% higher than for adult-only households. This is particularly troubling as inadequate nutrition can damage children’s emotional, physical, and mental well-being, and the consequences can last a lifetime.
Neither charity nor government assistance will dismantle structural inequalities that keep millions of Americans trapped in poverty. In 2019, about 35 million Americans relied on food charity, and almost 80% of householdsreceiving food stamps had at least one worker, while about one-third included two or more workers – a clear indication that many families do not make a living wage.
According to Paul Taylor, executive director of FoodShare, a Toronto based food justice organization: “Food insecurity is absolutely a political choice, 100%. This could be in our history books if governments decided to tackle poverty and food insecurity, but this can’t be done unless we disrupt capitalism.”
This is a condensed version of an article published in The Guardian of April 14, 2021, titled “America’s year of hunger: how children and people of color suffered most.” Courtesy of Guardian News & Media Ltd under their Open License agreement.The second part of Nina Lakhani’s special report will be published in The Guardian later this month and will examine the deep roots of America’s food insecurity problem.
Posted onJanuary 26, 2020byBhikkhu Bodhi|Comments Off on Educating the Children of Backpack Medics from Myanmar Conflict Zones
By BGR Staff
The oppression and persecution of religious and ethnic minorities by military forces in Myanmar (Burma) has a long and violent history. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, an estimated 401,000 people are internally displaced, living in isolated villages or in IDP camps, without access to sufficient medical care.
Since 1999, the U.S.–based Burma Humanitarian Mission (BHM) has partnered with the Back Pack Health Worker Team to provide health care to members of the country’s oppressed and persecuted ethnic minorities. In 2019, BHM supported 30 teams of backpack medics from the ethnic minority Karen, Kachin, Shan, Pa’laung, Mon, Chin, and Rohingya communities. The teams of five medics each travel to between nine and twelve villages each month, working with local village health volunteers and midwives to provide health care to people from their respective communities. Serving the most vulnerable areas of Myanmar, each team provides care to an estimated 2,000 people each year. Continue reading →
On August 18th, the Uganda Buddhist Centre (UBC) in Entebbe, Uganda, held a solidarity “Walk to Feed the Hungry,” the third such walk organized by the center. The walk was led by Ven. Bhante Buddharakkhita, a Uganda monk who is the founder of the center and a long-time member of BGR’s advisory council. The purpose of the walk was to raise awareness of hunger and malnutrition as a pressing issue both for Ugandans and for vulnerable communities around the world. Continue reading →
The US Department of Agriculture has proposed restricting access to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (known as “food stamps”) on the ostensible grounds that it is necessary to close a loophole in the program. But the real reason, it appears, is an ideological commitment to lowering taxes on the rich and cutting government spending on the poor.
Back in 1964, President Johnson initiated the War on Poverty, which aimed to eradicate the conditions of poverty by providing American citizens with access to food, education, and a secure retirement. Today, the Trump Administration is leading a War against the Poor, which aims to do the opposite. The most recent and blatant act in this war is the US Department of Agriculture’s proposal to restrict the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as food stamps.
On July 23, the USDA released a statement about the proposal, which aims to save $2.5 billion by taking 3 million people off of food stamps. The statement doesn’t mention it, but 500,000 of these people are children who will automatically lose access to free school lunches.
The ostensible rationale behind the proposal is that there is “a loophole” that needs to be closed: low income participants receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits are automatically eligible for food stamps. Because of this policy, which is designed to help transition families toward economic independence, the USDA claims that people are receiving assistance when they clearly don’t need it. To support this claim, they point to a Minnesota man who enrolled in the program, even though he was a millionaire. Continue reading →
One-third of Mongolia’s population experiences extreme poverty and is unable to afford basic food and shelter. The Tibetan monk, Ven. Panchen Ötrul Rinpoche, was determined to do something about this.
Born in Eastern Tibet in 1939 to nomadic parents, Ven. Rinpoche received full monastic ordination in 1961 under His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He completed his formal studies in India and was awarded the highest degree of Geshe Lharampa, equivalent to a Doctorate in Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy. In 1995, the Dalai Lama asked Rinpoche to go to Mongolia to teach Buddhism to the Mongolian people. After his arrival in Mongolia, he set about finding ways to overcome the high levels of poverty he encountered there. He established Asral NGOin 2001 with the objective of keeping families together and preventing children from going onto the streets. Asral is the Mongolian word for “care.” Continue reading →
Bhikkhu Bodhi
Charles W. Elliott
csprater
mhfein11
BGR Staff
Buddhist Global Relief 