As you all know my children are home educated, we are lucky enough to have enough food to eat and to live in a country where there are many choices regarding education. It is still shocking to me to know that many children are not fit enough physically, due to malnutrition, to be able to learn as effectively as my own. Every child has the right to enough food to be able to make the most of the wonderful world of learning we have around us, regardless of where they are in the world.
The results of the report are very worrying, here are some numbers:
And this is the story of Nguoth (from a Save the Children case study):
Although he is 12 years old, Nguoth looks about eight. Like many students in his class, for two years he had to drop out of school because there wasn’t enough food at home. He still misses school at least two days a week to go into the bush to find wild fruits. On the other days, he comes to school hungry. In 2010, the UN declared Akobo, the region where Nguoth lives, the ‘the hungriest place on earth’. Drought, floods and inter-communal conflict have left a third of children malnourished.
Malnutrition is an underlying cause of 2.3 million children’s deaths a year, and for millions more children contributes to failures in cognitive and educational development. As a result, the life chances of millions of children around the world are devastated. The long-term consequences of child malnutrition for health and resilience to disease are well established. But new evidence commissioned by Save the Children, for the first time identifies the impact of malnutrition on educational outcomes across a range of countries.
So how can we help? Save the Children have many suggestions!
- Sign up to ENOUGH FOOD FOR EVERYONE IF: sign the petition here
- Attend the rally in Hyde Park on the 8th June, more info here
- Support Save the Children in any way you can
- Watch the video by Lindsay Atkin and share it
