Break the Chains of Hunger

Do you remember chain letters? Given the ever-increasing price of stamps, I can’t imagine that anyone actually sends them through the post anymore, but when I was a wee girl I remember them doing the rounds at school every so often, with the promise of twenty friendship bracelets or twenty mix tapes or twenty Boyzone posters if you kept the chain going…

The chain letter that I’ve just received is a bit more important than that. It’s from Save the Children, and it’s addressed to David Cameron (the Prime Minister, not my Dad…), calling on him to free millions of children from hunger.

The world has enough food for everyone, yet every year millions of children are born into hunger. More than a third of children who die under five lose their lives because they can’t get the food they need – that’s 300 every hour.

What can the UK Prime Minister do about that? He can use his influence at this May’s G8 conference, where food security is on the agenda. If the G8 agrees to three key action points, we’ll go a long way towards ending hunger and malnutrition.

– a food security initiative that focuses on nutrition. Not only should agriculture produce more food but it must produce more nutritious food.

– increased funding for proven solutions to tackle malnutrition, such as fortifying foods with vitamins – just like cereals are here in the UK.

– set a global target to reduce malnutrition, which will galvanise political action on hunger.

During the two days that the G8 conference takes place, 14,000 children will die. If you believe, as I do, that this is unacceptable and wrong, and you think the PM should push for action, please take a couple of minutes to sign the Save the Children chain letter to Break the Chains of Hunger.

Together, we can give every child a life free from hunger.

(That beats a friendship bracelet, doesn’t it?)