UK-based charity The Hunger Project UK has re-launched their experiential food challenge A Day in Her Food, following growing interest from students. The initiative challenges students to live ‘in the food’ of women and their loved ones, facing chronic hunger in Africa, South Asia, and Latin America.
Food insecurity is increasingly linked with gender inequality, with a report suggesting that of the 828 million people affected by hunger in 2021, two-thirds were women. Despite women being responsible for 90% of preparing and buying food, they are eating last and least.
Either as an individual or as a team, students will follow recipes from Bangladesh, Peru, Senegal and Ghana and share their experiences, to help fundraise for the charity. The challenge helps students understand, to a small extent, what life might be like for women living with food insecurity. Crucially, the decisions they may have to make, and the impacts malnutrition can have on their lives.
Akshatha Giridhar, Student and President of LSESU Social Policy Society says: “I believe that experience is the best teacher! Without experiencing something, putting ourselves in other’s shoes is challenging, if not impossible. A Day in Her Food gives students like me an opportunity to be a true advocate by experiencing, at least in part, what it is like to be a woman in Bangladesh or Ghana or Peru! It will really change the way I look at hunger, therefore changing the way I advocate for what I am most passionate about.”
The Hunger Project UK will be part of the LSE Community Engagement Programme in January 2023. This programme is a supported initiative in which teams of LSE students volunteer as consultants for UK and overseas charities. Each team is given a project brief they must address within 10 weeks, and which focuses on a ‘challenge’ a charity faces. The project brief will be designing a national recruitment and roll-out strategy for the A Day In Her Food campaign.
Rebecca Burgess, Country Director of The Hunger Project UK states: “Youth are often leading the grassroots movement towards mitigating the impact of hunger, climate change, gender inequality and conflict, by generating innovative solutions. We’ve witnessed first-hand the power of young voices in growing our impact around the world. We believe that engaging with youth is vital to attaining the Sustainable Development Goal of zero hunger by 2030. Students are the next generation of global decision makers, and it is important for them to be aware of the growing global hunger crisis, as they take their next steps.”
The Hunger Project is keen to partner with schools and universities across the UK, so please get in touch to find out more.
The A Day In Her Food challenge is in partnership with Another Way Women’s Foundation and London School of Economics and Political Science.
