#RightsNotCharity

Tag: Food Insecurity

COVID Realities – Mobilizing UK Parents and Carers on a Low Income

In October 2021, households across the UK faced one of the biggest cuts to social security rates in recent history. The government reversed a 20 pound-per-week benefit to universal credit that had been introduced during the pandemic. This benefit cut is now projected to plunge a further half a million people, including 200,000 children, into poverty. The irony of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s platform of ‘leveling up’ seems to have been lost on him. In some cases, the extra 20 pound-per-week benefit kept many struggling families from relying on food banks, where recipients often feel demeaned. Their experiences were documented in a partnership between researchers, parents, carers, and the charity Child Poverty Action Group, who have been collectively advocating for policies that would allow people to nourish and support their families. Despite the recent cut to the UK’s social security, caregivers on low incomes have succeeded in voicing their overlooked realities to policy makers in the public. Today, we will learn more about this transformative power in a project called COVID Realities.

Food Banks and Charity as a False Response to Hunger in the Wealthy but Unequal Countries

Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2021 – The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the food injustices and inequalities felt by too many in the so-called ‚Global North‘, particularly those in marginalized communities – Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).

Not Our Menu: False solutions to hunger and malnutrition

Right to Food and Nutrition Watch 2021 – This year’s edition of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch – Not Our Menu: False Solutions to Hunger and Malnutrition – attempts  to connect the dots surrounding the food that we eat.

UK’s This is Rubbish! and the Plenty to Share Campaign

This podcast focuses on food waste as part of our Corporatization of Hunger series. Guest is UK National Food Waste Expert and Campaigner, Martin Bowman, from the British food waste advocacy organization, This is Rubbish. This is Rubbish’s Plenty to Share Campaign has just released three short animated videos, focused on inequality and the causes of food waste, food poverty and inequality and solutions to them.

The Connection Between Hunger and Health

In this episode, we’ll explore the connection between hunger and health, poverty and obesity, and the impact of food worry. Welcome to Rights Not Charity. This podcast series is about a big idea, ensuring everyone has enough food, not as a charitable gift, but as a fundamental human right. My name is Christina Wong and I’m the director of Public Policy and Advocacy at Northwest Harvest, a food justice organization and statewide food bank based in Seattle, Washington. Our guest today is Dr. Ben Danielson, a pediatrician with the University of Washington.

Why This Pediatrician Wants U.S. to Re-Frame Poverty and Food

Lack of food or too much of the wrong kind of food can create a wealth of physical and mental health problems. Making matters even worse, society often blames individuals for making the wrong choices. But data shows us that diet related ill health goes hand in hand with inequality and poverty and occurs at disproportionately higher rates for communities of color. In this episode, we talk with Dr. Ben Danielson, a pediatrician with the University of Washington, about the parallels between food banking and healthcare. And, how both systems manage social problems and could benefit from addressing food insecurity systemically at the root causes level.

What Does Hunger Look Like in Canada?

Canada is among the world’s 10 wealthiest countries. Yet food insecurity has been rising. Around one in eight Canadian households experienced food insecurity in 2018. A figure that has likely grown, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Like the U.S. and U.K., Canada has seen significant growth in food banks over the past 40 years, and many Canadians see food charity as a key solution to hunger.

Food poverty at record levels – a children’s book on food banks shows how normal it has become

“Wake up, mum. I’m hungry!” This is the opening line to the recently published children’s book, It’s a No-Money Day, by Kate Milner, a powerful exploration of food banks and life below the poverty line.

Food Poverty Has No Place in Our Society

Dave Beck is a lecturer in social policy at the University of Salford and expert on food poverty. We chat to him about his work, the role of food banks in the UK and how he believes we could eliminate food poverty.

What is Hunger in the United Kingdom?

The United Kingdom, where I’m from has seen rising levels of hunger over the past 10 years. And despite being in the top five wealthiest countries in the world, demand for food aid was rising even before 2020, but it’s estimated that 15% of families with children have struggled to afford a decent diet since the pandemic began. Food charities have struggled to cope and have increasingly called for government intervention. But the problem is still poorly understood. To help us understand food insecurity and hunger in the UK. Who it affects, what’s causing it and what’s being done about it – we’ve invited policy and international relations researcher Hannah Lambie-Mumford from the University of Sheffield and the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute. Over the last decade, she has studied the rise of food charity and the right to food in the UK and other European countries.

What is Hunger in the United States?

Did you know that 40 million people in the United States experience hunger. This is startling given the fact that the us is one of the richest countries in the world. Perhaps you’ve participated in a hunger drive at your school, have volunteered at a food pantry, or even experienced hunger yourself. So what is hunger and how do we manage this problem in the United States? In this episode, we talk to professor Janet Poppendieck of the Urban Food Policy Institute at the City University of New York, to explore some basic definitions of hunger and food insecurity, who it affects, and solutions to address the problem. Host: Rebecca De Souza, professor of communication at the University of Minnesota Duluth and author the book, “Feeding the Other: Whiteness, Privilege, and Neoliberal Stigma in Food Pantries.”

What is the Right to Food?

Have you ever wondered why there are so many hungry people in wealthy nations like the US, Canada and the UK long before and especially during COVID-19? So what does the “right to food” mean and why does it matter? In this podcast, two guests define the right to food, and also how it differs from food charity such as food banks and food pantries. University of British Columbia Professor Graham Riches is the leading voice on the right to food in Canada. He’s joined by attorney and PhD candidate Laura Castrejon-Violante, who researches the constitutionalization of the right to food. 

Learning “HOW” to Apply Racial Equity to Policies, Advocacy, Programs, and Service Provision to End Hunger

This webinar helps participants understand the correct definition of racial equity (including the differences between racial equity and diversity, and the role racial equity has in addressing systemic racism to end hunger). In addition, the webinar provides direct examples of “HOW” racial equity can be successfully applied to policies, program design and service implementation. Highlights are featured from the Racial Equity and Hunger Report, which provides detailed ways for how racial equity can be applied to SNAP, WIC and various Child Nutrition Programs. After reviewing these concrete examples, the webinar offers how to use the Racial Equity Methodology Tool, so audience members can start applying racial equity within the policies people design/support, and the programs they implement.

Big Hunger: Challenges and Current Opportunities to the Emergency Food System

Watch Closing the Hunger Gap’s inaugural webinar on the challenges of our current emergency food system and how one food bank is shifting towards their work to support community-based solutions. Author Andy Fisher recounts the history of our current charitable emergency food system and the tangled relationship between corporations and emergency food providers. Hear Andy’s thoughts about creating a long-term vision to truly ending hunger. Learn from the experiences of Robert Ojeda and Marco Liu of the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona about how their food bank is mobilizing resources and supporting community-based solutions.

E79: Andy Fisher on Exploring the Connection Between Industry and Food Banks

This podcast is part of The Leading Voices in Food series focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic is exposing a deep flaw in the country’s food system, namely stunning levels of food insecurity, but also the transformation of emergency food assistance into what some have characterized as an industry as food charity become big business. Andy Fisher, our guest today is a leader in the Food Security and Food Justice Movement. He founded and led The National Community Food Security Coalition and led Federal Legislation campaigns to gain more than $200 million for community-based food security and farm to school projects.

E80: Janet Poppendieck – COVID Highlights the Problems with Charity Food

This podcast is part of The Leading Voices in Food series focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re exploring today, the role of charitable efforts to address food access. Places such as food banks, soup kitchens and food pantries. Janet Poppendieck has studied the emergency food system in the U.S. for decades. She is professor emerita of sociology at Hunter College, City University of New York and the author of the book, “Sweet Charity, Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement.”

Ep 15: Jennifer Black on Creating Connections Through Food

Jennifer Black, an expert on food systems, joins Kalina Christoff to discuss the role of food in creating connections and communities, the surprising impact of school lunch programs and how the pandemic has affected food security and mental health in Canada. Dr. Black is an Associate Professor of Food, Nutrition and Health in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at UBC and a 2020 Wall Scholar at the Peter Wall Institute. Her research looks at the complex social and contextual factors that shape our attitudes and behaviours around food and eating.

Eleanor Roosevelt, Wikimedia Commons

Freedom From Want: Advocating for the Right to Food in the United States

The current state of food insecurity and the strategies for addressing hunger in the U.S. are a far cry from the vision the Roosevelts invoked on the eve of the establishment of the United Nations. With the growth of more than 60,000 private charitable organizations distributing food to tens of million of people in need while public social security unravels, Americans are not guaranteed the freedom from want. And so, we continue to advocate.

Providing public funding for food banks ‘makes a mockery of the data that shows food insecurity is an income problem that must be dealt with through poverty reduction and social inclusion.’ Photo by Jonathan Hayward, the Canadian Press.

Hey, Minister. It’s Time to End Our Disgraceful Food Bank Dependency

Graham Riches, professor emeritus of social work at the University of British Columbia, pens open letter to Nicholas Simons, B.C.’s minister of social development

Mutual-aid organizing for food security puts solidarity over charity

Blog – Mutual aid efforts have a long-standing history of mobilizing food as an organizing tool — as a meeting point around which communities come together.