Millions of children are at risk of starvation
Over the last few weeks, scenes of heartbreaking devastation have unfolded in the Middle East. But as children take shelter from violence, there’s more danger than bullets and bombs.
Conflict and hunger work together in a deadly combination.
But World Vision is also working and we say ENOUGH.
Together, we can stand against war and seek to stop hunger from ruining more lives.
Keep reading to discover:
How is World Vision helping end the hunger crisis?
We're targeting the most-at-risk nations with life-saving aid and assistance. These are countries where children are one step away from famine, living with acute malnutrition or facing the threat of civil unrest.
When crisis strikes, we respond quickly to provide children and families with life-saving food. We are one of the biggest partners of the World Food Programme – they help us provide food and cash assistance to the communities we are working with. Baby Hamdi, pictured, from Somalia recovered from severe malnutrition thanks to a World Vision programme which included both nutrition and cash support.
We listen and work with communities to help them rebuild and become self-sufficient again. Juan and his family live in Honduras. Their crops were failing, causing them to go hungry. World Vision's THRIVE - Transforming Lives in Vulnerable Environments - programme trains farmers like Juan in business skills, helping them increase their income generation and provide food for their families.
You can be part of World Vision’s lifesaving work:
Supporting parents to feed their children nutritious meals
We reach another child with nutritious food every minute
Building household resilience to climate shocks
We're helping families access food all year with climate-smart farming
Meeting urgent nutritional needs of children and families
89% of the severely malnourished children we treated made a full recovery
Hunger is killing children caught up in conflict zones. Stop hunger from ruining even more lives in the Middle East and beyond.
Give a child ENOUGH to eat today. Give them hope for tomorrow.
The facts about child hunger are staggering. There is enough food to feed every person. Yet, 45 million people – around half of them children – are at risk of food shortages. Poverty, conflict and climate change displace families, disrupt farming practices and destroy livelihoods, leaving those affected without access to nutritious food.
Hungry families face desperate choices to survive, like selling animals which reverses the gains families had made to escape poverty. In extreme cases, families may also enter their daughters into early marriage. This means one less mouth to feed and more income to feed the rest of the family. Parents hope that their girls will be better provided for. But many girls who end up in this situation suffer abuse, exploitation and are refused an education, damaging their future lives and wellbeing Other children may be forced to beg, to work in dangerous jobs, or even to join insurgent groups as child soldiers, gaining food in return for taking up arms.
85% of forcibly displaced families are unable to afford enough and nutritious food to meet their daily nutrition needs.
Current child hunger statistics show that tens of thousands of children could starve to death without urgent food aid. We also know that poor nutrition in the first 1,000 days of a girl or boy’s life leads to poor brain development, permanently impaired mental function and lower IQs. Young children are at increased risk of malnutrition due to lack of enough nutritious food and nutrition services. A severely wasted (malnourished) child is 11 times at risk of death than a well-nourished child.
The deaths of children are preventable, if we act now.
There is a technical assessment and process for determining a famine, and any announcement of a famine is only made with extreme caution. Naturally governments are very sensitive about a famine being declared.
For a famine to be declared, there must be evidence of these three things:
