“It’s a really bad situation that people have to decide whether they can feed themselves, feed their children or put the heating on.”
It’s a shocking indictment of our times that while the world produces enough food to feed everyone, there are still millions of people hungry and malnourished globally. Equally shocking is the rise of foodbanks across the UK, and that hunger remains an issue in one of the richest countries in the world.
Food security is a term we usually associate with other places and countries; countries we consider to be ‘poor’. However, food insecurity is clearly also an issue across the UK. Whether in Malawi or Scotland the causes are generally the same: poverty and inequality.
Exploring the issues
Issues around food insecurity and hunger can be tackled in school as part of learning around the Sustainable Development Goals – Goals 1 and 2 focus on poverty and hunger – as well as other topics. This issue can also be a catalyst to encourage young people to take action. Many schools have been involved in Mary’s Meals (the Scottish charity which runs school feeding programmes in many of the poorest communities around the world) or have become involved in their local food banks. Both are admirable activities but should also be approached with a critical eye: why do we have food banks in Scotland in 2020? Why do children in Malawi need free school meals in order to access an education? These are complex issues but ones which young people need the opportunity to explore, acknowledging the political, economic and social issues which underpin hunger and food in security wherever it might appear.
Why do we have food banks in Scotland in 2020? Why do children in Malawi need free school meals in order to access an education?
Foodbanks
In 2018 the Trussell Trust network distributed 1.6 million food parcels and continues to respond to rising demand. In their The State of Hunger report (2019), they recognise the need to address the structural causes of poverty that bring people to food banks. Ultimately they are committed to the end of food banks.
While it is important that our young people are aware of the poverty and inequality which exists within their local communities, it is also important that they know why. A volunteer at a food bank describes it like this: “you think about people being hungry and it's a knee-jerk reaction that comes to people's minds, you know, let's get some tins, let's get the donations in, as if that's going to solve it. Well, it's not going to solve the poverty that drives the hunger”.
Mary’s Meals
Mary’s Meals provides one nutritious meal every day in a place of education for vulnerable children in some of the world’s poorest communities. As well as meeting immediate needs of hungry children it encourages them to go to schools and get an education that can, in future, be a ladder out of poverty. Recent research by the charity indicates increased enrolment and attendance at school as well as improved health and wellbeing and community engagement and support for education.
While (food) supplies have surpassed population growth, 821 million people still go to bed hungry every night.
Children and young people in Scotland have been actively involved in fundraising for the charity, which can have the unfortunate consequence of promoting pity and charitable giving rather than encouraging critical questions around issues of social justice and inequality.
Tools for the classroom
A good starting point for exploring the issue of food insecurity is to use a Development Compass Rose. This is a simple, easy to remember framework based on the points of a compass, which can provide a framework for developing a critical, questioning mind-set to an issue. A photograph or object is used as a stimulus and breadth of questioning encouraged. It would be interesting to use stimuli photos (local and global) on the theme of hunger and compare how similar or different the resulting questions are.
Another useful tool is a why-why-why chain. Start with a question such as ‘why do people use foodbanks?’ and then keep asking the question ‘why’ in order to examine some of the reasons why people rely on foodbanks to survive.
We must encourage critical questions around issues of social justice and inequality rather than foster pity and charity.
Global food challenge
Global food issues are complex. While supplies have surpassed population growth, 821 million people still go to bed hungry every night. Global hunger is, in part a consequence of the failure of global food chains to meet the needs of people adequately. Oxfam Education has created both a primary and secondary resource to help learners explore why people are hungry and to understand how global supply chains work and some of the challenges facing the small-scale farmers who produce it.
Food issues
Any exploration of hunger and food security inevitably leads on to many other connected issues. Climate breakdown is massively impacting people’s ability to grow food for themselves; wild and deforested land lost to cattle farming is leading to huge biodiversity loss; shocking amounts of food waste are created every day in Scotland; unjust trade rules mean producers in other countries often don’t get a good deal for the work they do. Wherever your Global Citizenship food journey takes you – ensure it is one that asks the critical questions and challenges the status quo.
