Hunger

{This was a speech that I wrote in My senior english class}

     Julia is a 6 year old girl living in California. She doesn’t get the proper amount of food. Her dad has been out of work for 6 months and her mother’s salary isn’t enough to live off of. Even with welfare they still cannot manage to pay the rent and still have enough to feed her. She is suffering.
     Why must so many innocent men, women, and children die of hunger when there is more than enough food for everyone? Why must so little food be given to the hungry, the homeless, and the poor? How long can we ignore this problem?
     We, as Americans, take so many things for granted. We don’t realize how many thousands of people in the world are starving. We don’t realize how lucky we are that we have enough food to eat. We don’t realize how truly blessed we are.
     This is caused by a simple lack of attention to the problem. We waste our food or feed it to animals. We try to be a superpower and try to be the ‘helper of all nations’ but we seem to ignore those countries who need our help the most. They are suffering from malnutrition and we only give them minimal help, if any help at all. We must wake up to the fact! We must stop wasting our food! We must try to help those nations who are suffering from starvation and diseases that accompany them! We have the resources.
     These facts will help illustrate the point. It is estimated that hunger is felt by one billion people, that’s one in every five. The world produces enough food to feed each of them, but we waste it or feed it to the animals. One third of all the grain that is grown and one half of all the fish caught in the world are fed to animals in wealthy countries, such as ours. This is taking food away from hungry mouths that need the food to live.
     Each day some thirty five thousand people die from malnutrition. That’s twenty four a minute. Take two deep breaths. Three people around the world died in the time that it took you to breath those two breaths. That is a lot of people. People don’t realize how serious this problem is. This is one of the most serious problems facing the planet.
     In order to change we must first wake up to the problem. If you don’t understand or even acknowledge the problem then you cannot solve it. We must first realize how many people are dying and how many are suffering through no fault of their own. Then we can do something about the problem.
     Second we must organize to fight the problem. We must create organizations that take food and supplies to places like Africa and Uganda that are starving. We must organize teams with doctors that stay in the area to help treat the diseases associated with malnutrition. We must also realize that the problem of malnutrition is not only in far away countries, but in America as well. We must help those who are poor and can’t afford to buy food to eat that live in the streets of our own country. Families on welfare many times cannot afford to pay the rent and eat a balanced meal.
     This problem is not going to be solved simply with funding from the government. We must, on a regular basis, help others who can’t afford to eat. When we see people who are starving we must give them some food. When we see someone who is poor we should give them the necessities.
     Thirdly, we have to realize that there are some organizations, such as World Vision, that are already organized and are helping feed the hungry. We need to give them our support. We can help solve this problem by supplying these organizations more money so that they can use the money to buy food and medical supplies for countries that are too poor to afford these badly needed necessities. We use our money for pleasure and to buy fancy things that we can really live without. It’s time to give assistance to organizations that will give people what they need to live.
     The benefits to doing this are endless. First it would benefit us by giving us the sense of doing something good. This will help us feel better about ourselves. Then it would help make the world a better place to live for all. It would make the planet a better place for the next generations to inherit. It would benefit the people whom you helped. It would bring a sense of happiness and joy that couldn’t be brought to them by anything else.
     People around the world are starving and we have to help them. We have too long sat and let them die. It’s time to wake up to the problem and take action. It’s time to bring a brighter future for tomorrow.

Written by:
Me


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