Screen grab from our African-American Voices for Africa PSA video. (Shot by Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World) By Laura Elizabeth Pohl "I've got an idea," my colleague Racine Tucker-Hamilton said to me, excitement lighting up her face. "What do you think about producing a public service announcement?" A television network had been asking Racine if we here at Bread had a PSA about our African-American Voices for Africa (AAVA) initiative, which aims to get African-Americans involved in advocating for... Continue reading

Sharmila Chaudhari feeds her daughter Sanjana, 19 months, at the Nutrition Rehabilitation Home (NRH) in Dhangadhi, Nepal, on Sunday, April 29, 2012. This Nutrition Rehabilitation Home in the western part of the country is run by an NGO in Nepal called the Rural Women's Development and Unity Centre (RUWDUC). Children eat meals and snacks at 7 a.m., 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 7 p.m., and they drink milk at 10 p.m., 1 a.m., and 4 a.m. Forty-one percent... Continue reading

The hoe falls in a rhythmic “thud, thud, thud” as Jane Sabbi and her sister-in-law hack at the undergrowth on Sabbi’s shaded, fertile vegetable farm. The sun is still rising in Kamuli, Uganda, and Sabbi has already cooked breakfast, washed the dishes, cleaned the goat and pig pens, and laid out several pounds of beans to dry. Still ahead: pounding amaranth, harvesting bananas, shelling beans, feeding the animals, and cooking lunch for her husband and seven children. “I want to... Continue reading

Being a mom is hard. Now imagine being a mom and not being able to afford nutritious food for your only child, a smiley boy born with a severe health problem. Now add to that being homeless and 17 years old, and you might begin to imagine how Alli Morris feels. Luckily, there are people and programs helping Alli and her son André. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) safeguards the health of low-income women,... Continue reading

The little boy was wearing short sleeves in winter and his lips were turning blue. Pastor Judith VanOsdol was surprised, but not stunned. She knew why he wasn’t wearing a coat: The majority of her congregation at El Milagro Lutheran Church in Minneapolis is poor and food insecure. “More people than we can realize fall between the cracks or are just under the line and find themselves in situations where they are unable to feed their families and the children,”... Continue reading

Ayleen Ferreras, 6, plays with a carrot from her school lunch at Rolling Terrace Elementary School in Takoma Park, MD, on April 26, 2011. Bread for the World supports strengthening child nutrition programs as an immediate and direct way to reduce child hunger and improve health and educational outcomes. (Screen grab from video by Laura Elizabeth Pohl/Bread for the World) You love videos, right? So do we. Which is why we were excited when InterAction, an alliance of U.S.-based non-governmental... Continue reading

These women are part of a sewing/tailoring workshop at a family center run by MRDS.org in Sulaymaniyah, northern Iraq. (Copyrighted photo courtesy of Heber Vega) If people remember a photograph, they are more likely to remember the issue or event that goes along with it. As a photographer, I try to take memorable and striking photos that will help our members remember the issues of hunger and poverty. But when it comes to photographing hunger and poverty-related issues, there's the... Continue reading

There's a place in Afghanistan where kids are learning how to ollie, as well as how to build for their country's future. It's called Skateistan and it was started by aid workers wanting to share their love of skateboarding with Afghan children. "Skateistan builds on the positive interactions that kids experience through skateboarding and we also build in education," says Sharna Nolan, Skateistan's co-founder. "We expose our students to a whole range of new ideas and new subjects that are... Continue reading

Girls often have fewer opportunities for education and jobs than boys -- a fact that the Millennium Development Goals are trying to address. Furthermore, research shows that girls without an education are more likely than boys to be hungry and poor as adults. In fact, women disproportionately suffer from hunger. But attitudes about gender are hard to change. In Bangladesh, Shilpi's Mom thought a son would be better than a daughter. That was until Shilpi started weaving and selling mats,... Continue reading

It looks like the back end of a semi truck that crashed head down into a snowy hillside, but it's really the entrance to a world of food not-yet-grown: seeds. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened in 2008 to securely store seeds from around the globe. Natural disasters, political instability or a combination of the two plus other factors can cause famine (such as in the Horn of Africa) and threaten individual countries' seed banks. But Svalbard, located about 800... Continue reading

The Three Gorges Dam on China Yangtze's River is one of the largest dams in the world, generating electricty and drinking water for millions. But the dam also displaced millions of people when the rising river swallowed up their villages and cities. How far is too far when it comes to development and lifting people out of poverty? This story is part of our Wednesday ViewChange video series. Continue reading

A Somali woman and a malnourished child exit from the medical tent after the child received emergency medical treatment from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Somalia is the country worst affected by a severe drought that has ravaged large swaths of the Horn of Africa, leaving an estimated 11 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. (UN Photo/Stuart Price) We've been writing for the past few weeks about the complexities of the famine in the Horn of Africa.... Continue reading

Former World Bank economist Eleni Gabre-Madhin has long said that the lack of agricultural market information in Africa is one of the reasons people there remain poor. In this TED talk from 2007, Gabre-Madhin proposes starting a commodites exchange in Ethiopia. Africa's markets are weak not only because of weak infrastructure in terms of roads and telecommunications, but also because of the virtual absence of necessary market institutions such as market information, grades and standards, and reliable ways to connect... Continue reading

My professional background is in photojournalism, so I'm a sap for stories in which people learn photography and then document their lives. In this short film from the Dominican Republic, Haitian migrant women talk about how learning and doing photography changed their perceptions of the world. For some women, it also changed the way the world perceived them. This story is part of our Wednesday ViewChange video series. Continue reading

You've probably seen the stories about East Africa's worst food crisis in 60 years: Hungry and parched Somali children and adults are streaming into refugee camps in eastern Kenya, itself hit by a drought, along with Djibouti and Ethiopia, the other countries that make up the Horn of Africa. But there's one story you probably haven't seen: Kenyans themselves raising money for famine relief. In a country where 46% of the population lives below the poverty line, Kenyans have donated... Continue reading

This interactive map from Oxfam helps explain the global food crisis in a format that most anyone can understand. The crisis is complex, as you can see, particularly in the Horn of Africa. To say that drought, climate change, or rising transportation costs were the famine's main triggers there is to simplify the situation. And just as investment in some types of preventive health care is more effective and less expensive than treating illnesses later, so too investment in communities... Continue reading

We've often reported that one of the best predictors of lifetime earnings is education. But in northeastern Uganda, children must watch over their family's cattle. A new UNICEF-supported mobile education initiative allows children to attend school and help their families. This story is part of our Wednesday ViewChange video series. Continue reading

An NPR story aired this morning about the town of Hardwick, VT, which is deep into the local food movement. There are lots of organic farms, a farmers market, a food co-op, and a restaurant that serves food from the area. Fresh mustard greens for sale at the Abingdon Farmers Market in Abingdon, VA But there's one big issue in the local food movement, said Derek Demers, a senior at Hazel Union, Hardwick's local high school. And that issue is... Continue reading

We've written before about water being one of two critical factors in ending hunger. Solving the problem of water scarcity is one of the world's greatest challenges. Australia's former governor general recently said the world faces looming food and water shortages for which governments aren't prepared. But what happens when you have water but no way to get to it? The former Soviet Union brought electricity and a pipe water system to Nahkhchivan, Azerbaijan, but that system has fallen into... Continue reading

One of the Millennium Development Goals aims for universal primary education for all children by 2015. Although there's been progress, it doesn't look like we're going to meet that goal: More than 70 million primary school-aged children do not go to school, and 55 percent of them are girls. A variety of economic and social factors keep girls from getting an education. In some places, girls are seen as more useful to their families when they're working around the home... Continue reading

David Beckmann speaks during Bread for the World's 2011 Gathering. (Photo by Rick Reinhard) Sara Acosta, an AmeriCorps VISTA in North Carolina, recently wrote on her blog about the lessons she learned at Bread for the World's 2011 Gathering. From discretionary government funding to church/state separation, she covers it all, including a reflection on foreign assistance (the focus of our 2011 Offering of Letters): A common argument against domestic and foreign social programs (including foreign aid) is that we need... Continue reading

Silva Adhiambo is a midwife living in Kibera, notorious as the largest slum in Nairobi, Kenya. To outsiders' eyes, her neighborhood isn't much of a home. But it's her home and it's where she runs her business. Now, the United Nations and the Kenyan government are in partnership to relocate people in Kibera as part of a slum upgrading program. It's a massive foreign assistance project that Adhiambo doesn't support. "If they demolish these houses and evict us, I won't... Continue reading

Women in India often spend most of their lives working on their husband's farm while never being able to own the land. Indeed, around the world, women make up an average of 43 percent of the agricultural labor force (you can learn a little more about this in our June 2011 Breadcast episode on agriculture and malnutrition in Uganda) but lack the power to improve their farms through new farming techniques and technology - all because they don't own the... Continue reading

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Holly Hight thanks the stars of Bread for the World's activist videos (linked below) at the 2011 Gathering in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, June 11, 2011. Videos: Cameron Shaw - A Bread Activist in Los Angeles Dominic Barrett - A Bread Activist in Richmond, Va. Tina Hayashi - A Bread Activist in Seattle Continue reading