Petition To End Hunger begins

July 23, 2010 …Students at the Environment Division Eco –Zone Camp, being held at the Mary E. Piggott School from July 12 –August 6, were informed about the devastating effects of hunger and the role they can play to eradicate the scourge through participation in the campaign of petition signing to end hunger.

On Friday, Ministry Officials, including the Permanent Secretary Clarence Pilgrim addressed the students, on the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations-led effort/petition drive, 1 billionhungry.org to reduce poverty as per the Millennium Development Goals.

By logging on to 1billionhungry.org and sign the online petition, it, is a signal for investment in mechanisms.

 For those without internet access, paper petitions are being circulated so their voices will be counted in this effort. In late October, the results of the petition drive will be presented symbolically to world leaders during World Food Day Observances at UN headquarters in New York. Our goal is to collect 1 million signatures.

On Friday, Ministry staffs were clothed in their T-Shirts.   The process of signatures collection has also begun.

Meanwhile, 4H Clubs and youth organizations, have also received the T-Shirts and paper petition are available in the Ministry’s reception area, encouraging visitors to sign.

The Ministry of Agriculture has also moved ahead with the placement of the 1billionhungry.org web banner on the home page of the Ministry’s website, www.agricultureantiguabarbuda.com.  This banner is available in a variety of sizes and formats.

One billion people suffer chronic hunger – an estimated 10 million of them live in the Caribbean region. FAO wants to bring this problem into sharp focus and harness the growing frustration at the lack of progress on hunger especially in light of the looming deadline for Millennium Development Goal 1 – reduction of hunger by half by 2015.

The campaign undertaken by this ministry, in the coming months, through FAO will be seeking to work with our partners in all the countries of the region to bring visibility to this grave situation, especially amongst young people, who will find the social media and viral marketing aspect of the campaign appealing.

The lead organization FAO, through the Ministry, will also be supplying audio and video clips for use by the media as well as launching various competitions and seeking to create public dialogue.

On Tuesday, 11 May, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations launched the 1billionhungry.org campaign amidst much fanfare in Rome.