World Food Programme wins Nobel Peace Prize

World Vision UK Programme Officer, Christine Barrett (pictured below) celebrates this landmark win.

In December 2020, the World Food Programme received the Nobel Peace Prize "for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict."

Notable past recipients of this, one of the most important prizes in the world, are Mother Teresa (1979) and Malala Yousafzai (2014).

Assistance through conflict

In times of conflict, people like those in a joint World Vision and WFP project in South Sudan, can be forced to move far away from their farms. Often they end up in remote areas sometimes for months or years, to keep themselves and their families safe. The project in South Sudan involved dropping food from planes to very rural, remote areas because poor quality roads and ongoing conflict in the area prevented transportation of urgently needed food.

The beautiful and inspiring short video below, perfectly captures the partnership of World Vision and the World Food Programme at work together in South Sudan.

Providing food

Earlier in 2020, in the UK, footballer Marcus Rashford made headlines campaigning for free school meals to be provided in the holidays to stop holiday hunger for all children. His petition, with over 880,000 signatures at the time of writing, shows just how much we in the UK care about the issue of child food poverty. This is something we've been blessed to see for many years now, as World Vision UK's supporters have supported our joint programmes with the World Food Programme.

In South Darfur, in Sudan, a joint World Vision and WFP-supported project, which I visited in 2018, took this work a step further when treating acute malnutrition in small children. World Vision in Sudan built on research showing that combining health programmes for mothers and children, along with support for positive parenting and playing, is likely to have long-term benefits for children’s development and health. World Vision was welcomed into the community to provide training and play support to families, which as well as being enjoyable and strengthening family bonds, also helped the children to recover better.

The results of this approach are evident in the healthy, smiling face of Mashier, 25, with her 8-month-old daughter, Mayamen (pictured below). You can read the full story here.