CARPE DIEM

"Every 5 seconds.."

 rosprynn (c) 2005

*********Warning: A Ros rant!


"You cannot change the world". So said a new acquaintance to me last week. I sit here on a rainy Vancouver day in my warm apartment, with coffee and toast to hand. On the radio (CBC of course!) is a discussion with an expert on the issue of famine still crawling the globe. "Every 5 seconds a child dies of hunger".

You may be excused for believing that hungry children only 'live' in the darkest corners of Africa and certainly not in your own backyard. Not so - a new report issued this week about poverty in Canada: every day one in five children in this country goes hungry. Here in British Columbia, a separate report shows that almost one in four children goes hungry. A government spokesperson says "this is an improvement"! over previous statistics.

Some of you know I have a collection of vinyl albums. I also find - today - three 45's (that's the little records for you young 'uns!) which were produced in 1985. Twenty years ago rock stars, musicians came together to raise funds for famine relief. The sale of those three records DID raise lots of money to help children starving in far off lands, yet here we are. Still more words, about Darfur, Zimbabwe, et al and so little political will to change this world.

This week CNN ran a story on Americans racing to the cash registers to start Christmas shopping on their Thanksgiving Day. I still have my white wristband as a reminder of the hope that a recent G8 meeting would, once and for all, sound the death knell on starving children. The only death knell sounding is that of fragile, precious children, still dying as the politicians huff and
puff and guard their own straw houses of power.

In New Orleans recently, and Pakistan, we saw up close and personal the face of
childhood hunger as the media swarmed to the natural disasters. I guarantee
that even as the tv cameras have moved on, and the journalists jetted off to the next 'scoop', those children are still hungry, still dying.

It is said that give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and he can feed his family for a lifetime. There may be no fish in some parts of the world where hunger is the grim reaper, but it seems to me we, as a human family, need to do better in caring for each other.

To me, it is not enough to say our statistics are improving. As long as one child goes hungry we should all be ashamed of ourselves. Then, we should dig deep within our hearts and our souls, and decide to change the world.

This issue is overwhelming when you focus on the figure of 6 million children dying every year from preventable (my word !) hunger as detailed in a recent UN report. But... I have to believe that if we break it down to one child, then another and another, we can wrestle hunger into extinction. I don't have all the answers, but I know we each can be a part of the global solution. One child
at a time. "How can we look away, when every single day.." Every hungry
child is one of our own.

Carpe Diem



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