Partnership, Not

Charity
A FeelGood Journey
There are approximately 1 billion
people in the world who can’t get
enough food to remain alive.

Why?
 Fact or Fiction?

Hunger is the result of a global food shortage.

 Fiction

“The world produces more than enough food for everyone and,
if we act wisely, can continue to do so for future generations.
The world community possesses the financial and technical
resources necessary to end hunger.”
 Fact or Fiction?

Hunger is simply an issue of food.

 Fiction

“Ending hunger is central to an entire nexus of issues – including

family income, health, education, environmental sustainability,
human rights and social justice. During the 1990s, advocates for
each of these issues came to recognize that only in solving all
these issues together can any of them be solved.”
 Fact or Fiction?

Treating hungry people as “mouths to feed”

perpetuates hunger.
 Fact

“Conventional approaches to ending hunger are based on a

framework of thinking that fundamentally misidentifies who
hungry people truly are. Treating hungry people as “mouths to
feed” – as passive recipients or beneficiaries, dependent on
outside aid--literally reinforces the conditions of powerlessness
that give rise to hunger.”
 Fact or Fiction?

Hunger is a denial of selfhood.

 Fact

“Those living in conditions of hunger – most of whom are

women – are subjugated, marginalized and disempowered –
conditions in which centuries of humiliation can destroy any
sense of autonomous selfhood, of being worthy of the most
basic human rights. Those of us not living in poverty are also
diminished in our selfhood. We are diminished by feelings of
guilt or are cut off from experiencing our shared humanity with
a large portion of our human family.”
 Fact or Fiction?

Hunger is not a problem to be solved,

but an opportunity to unleash the human spirit.
 How we think about the causes of hunger, and
how we think about the people who live in hunger,
determines how we respond to hunger .
 Two Paradigms, Two Outcomes
Old Paradigm New Paradigm
• The Cause • The Cause
– Physical: Lack of food, services – Systemic: social & mental
barriers
• The People • The People
– Resigned, helpless, passive, – Resilient, wise, resourceful,
despondent, dependent creative, productive
• The Response • The Response
– Service delivery; Charity – Empowerment; Partnership
• The Result • The Result
– Dependency and the – Self-reliance and the
perpetuation of hunger end of hunger
 Three Pillars of Partner-focused
Development
Forging
alliances
with local
gov’ts

Integral, self-
Women’s empowerment as reliant and
key agents for social
change
sustainable End of poverty and hunger
development

Mobilization
for self-
reliant
action