Can you picture 20 million people?
By Alan Browde, CEO and founder of SA Harvest
Surely the greatest injustice in South Africa is the fact that millions of people are chronically hungry while there is a surplus of food in the country.
Yes, 20 millions South Africans go to sleep hungry every night while 10 million tons of food goes to waste every year.
It’s time that the South African government took an interest and intervened in the food ecosystem to ensure the equitable access to affordable, nutritious food for all South Africans.
SA Harvest, together with software technology company Synthesis, decided to do something to encourage the government to do the right thing.
In the peak of the third wave, as Covid was raging out of control, the respective teams came together for a virtual hackathon to develop a tech-based solution to the task at hand.
The underlying goal was to humanise the issue! While the facts are grotesque, the effect on people hearing them is very short-term. Shocked today, forgotten tomorrow! This is because we have no concept of what 20 million people really means. Our minds cannot conceive of this. If we were to stand on a spot and 20 million people walked past us, 0.5 of a second per person, it would take 4 months, 24 hours a day, for the line, which would stretch from Cape Town to Cairo and beyond, to end!!
And so our concept, inspired by the spirit of Madiba, was born. A petition to the government to immediately put in place processes that will ultimately end hunger in South Africa, was launched on Mandela Day.
The difference with this petition is that you sign with a picture of yourself to remind the government (and ourselves) that it is real, live human beings that are suffering and real live human beings who care about that suffering.
This is what we mean by humanising the issue. It’s real people, men, women and children, who are hungry. Think of your baby, your child, your mom, your grandchild suffering hunger for just one day, let alone day after day, week after week, month after month…
We decided to name this process #UnionAgainstHunger because ultimately we want all South Africans to unite to fight the scourge of hunger. Above all, this is a peaceful protest, a virtual movement that’s easy and safe to participate in. This movement is for anyone — here or abroad — who wants to help end hunger, and the injustice of it, in South Africa.
The bottom line is that we are demanding that Section 27 (1) b of the Constitution, which states that everyone has the right to access sufficient food (and water), be fulfilled and, in signing the petition, one agrees that the following steps would help achieve this:
- Governance: A single, independent Ministry of Food.
- Food waste and loss: Maximum rescue of food that would have gone to waste
- Childhood nutrition: A universal nutrition scheme through Early Childhood Development centres.
- Access to Food: Fair pricing for a basic basket of nutritious food.
- Enterprise development: Protection of traders in the informal sector.
- Financial: Basic Income Grant (BIG) at meaningful monetary levels for all vulnerable South Africans.
- Basic Services: More effective subsidisation of universal access to electricity and water
(abbreviated — see petition for demands in full)
How to become part of the movement
Go to the SA Harvest portal, upload your profile picture, and apply the #UnionAgainstHunger frame to your social media profiles — Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp. LinkedIn — and invite the world to join you in this virtual protest against injustice of hunger.
By using the #UnionAgainstHunger frame you are sending the message that you are an advocate against hunger.
The petition will be sent to the South African government every month — a growing image of the faces of people standing up in union against hunger.
Let’s remember Nelson Mandela’s words: “It always seems impossible until it’s done!”.
To sign the #UnionAgainstHunger visual petition, go to: https://saharvest.org/unionagainsthunger
