Objective 3: To know who is hungry in the world

Materials

Concepts:
- Hunger is not getting enough of the right kinds of foods to meet our needs
- All countries and regions have some people who are hungry

Content

Hunger is not having enough food and not having the variety of foods to meet nutritional needs. Hunger is a problem all over the world. Every country and region has some people who do not get enough to eat. While hunger is present in every country, some countries and regions have a greater problem feeding their people.
In the year 2001, 800 million people are hungry and never get enough to eat all year long. The goal of the new millennium is to make sure that everyone has enough food and the right kinds of food to eat.
Hunger exists for many reasons (presented in Lesson 2), and it will take much work to solve the problems it causes. Many people are working together in all parts of the world to identify causes and search for solutions to the hunger problem.
All people, including children, can be a part of this effort by learning as much as they can about hunger and how to prevent it.

Activities

Hold up the picture Map of World Hunger, which indicates areas with serious hunger and malnutrition problems. Explain how the map shows the areas where many people do not get all of the foods that they need. Point out the areas with the largest numbers of hungry people. Explain that all countries have some hungry people.
Discuss how the people within each area who are most likely to be hungry are the people without jobs or without education, the poor, people without land on which to grow food and other socially disadvantaged people. People who may also be hungry are those with special nutritional needs, such as children (who need to grow) and pregnant and nursing women. Wars, civil disturbances, climate and environmental changes and other emergencies such as floods and earthquakes often cause both short- and long-term hunger in an area. Identify your area/region of the world and discuss its problem with hunger. Ask children to think about a world where all people have enough food to eat. Ask them to create a picture in their minds of that world and share that picture with the class. Share your mental picture of that world with no hungry people. Where resources are available, have children draw their "mind's-eye" picture of a world or place where food is plentiful and no one is hungry and display these pictures in school buildings as well as public buildings in the community.
Discuss how people can become hungry for many reasons, how it takes much work to solve the problem, and how many people are working to learn why people are hungry and to find ways to ensure that there is good food, all year long, for everyone.
Discuss how the people in the world can work together so that everyone will have enough and the right kinds of food to eat.

Summary

Lesson 1 presented material to answer the questions What is Hunger and Who are the Hungry? After completion of Lesson 1 children should be able to state that:

We all need food .
Food gives us the energy and nutrients we need to grow and develop; to move, work, play, think and learn; and to maintail life and health.
Too little or too much food is not healthy.
Hunger is not getting enough of the right kinds of foods to meet our needs.
All regions have some people who are hungry.
Some people have special nutrition needs, including children, pregnant and nursing mothers, people who work hard and people who are sick.

Tell students that in our next lesson we are going to learn where food comes from and some of the reasons people are hungry in our world.