Why are children going hungry?
The answer is a simple, yet complex one: poverty.
Globally, 265 million children are missing out on school meals right now.
Every day, families around the world have to choose how to use the little money or resources they have. Pay the rent? Keep the electricity on? Get their medication? Buy healthy food for 3 meals a day for the whole family?
Poverty has so many complex causes and affects every aspect of family life.
Here are just a few:
- Sudden unemployment (how many redundancies have you seen in 2020?);
- A rise in the cost of living (rent, food prices etc), which means money won’t stretch as far;
- An emergency (such as a natural disaster or conflict) forcing you to leave your home or workplace – or both;
- Insufficient – or non-existent – welfare system;
- Loss of the family breadwinner (whether through death or separation), leaves – most often – mothers with simultaneously a much larger financial burden and less free-time to earn a living.
Often, families facing poverty are experiencing a combination of these – and other – factors.
And in 2020, a growing number of families at home and abroad are dealing with at least one of the above. It could happen to anyone.