Food for Thought: Hunger, Health Human Rights
Thursday Events
Community Panel, 2 p.m., 400 Mosler Hall
Film: Seeds of Hunger, 4 p.m., 206 Mosler Hall
Hunger Banquet, 5:30 p.m., Wilks Conference Center
Friday events
Fast Food Nation book discussion group, 1:30 p.m., Miami Hamilton Downtown
Mothering, Food and Fat Children: The politics of Blame, with Dr. April Herndon, 4 p.m., Miami Hamilton Downtown
HAMILTON — The community is invited to a banquet today at the Wilks Conference Center at Miami University Hamilton, but not everyone will go away well-fed.
The Miami Hamilton Human Rights & Social Justice Program will host its first “Hunger Banquet,” an event designed to raise awareness of hunger issues and the injustice of food distribution systems throughout the world, according to Ashley Hampton, a MUH junior and student community outreach coordinator for the Center for Civic Engagement.
It works like this: People coming to the banquet will be given a card as they enter, telling them that they are in a high, medium or low-income group.
“They get to sit with their group and we give them different facts that people don’t normally think about when you think about food distribution,” Hampton said.
Facts like, 842 million people globally are plagued by hunger, or that more than 30,000 children die daily of hunger-related causes, according to Oxfam America, an international relief organization.
“Then we serve the meal,” Hampton said.
Those in the high-income group are served a spaghetti dinner, provided by sponsor At Your Service Catering.
The middle-income group gets rice and beans.
The low income group — which will be the majority of people attending — is given bowls of rice in the middle of the floor without utensils.
“They have to figure out how to disperse the food among them,” Hampton said.
“What we have in America is different than what you get elsewhere in the world,” she said. “Afterward, we follow up in an open discussion of what they’ve experienced.
“I really hope people become more aware of how unfair the ability to acquire food throughout the world is. That only a small percentage of people can eat the minimum number of calories needed to live a healthy life.”
The Hunger Banquet is part of a weeklong series of events sponsored by the Miami Hamilton Human Rights & Social Justice Program, according to faculty organizer Theresa Kulbaga.
Every year, the program creates a week of special events focused on a specific issue.
This year, it’s food.
“When I talked to various students about helping me out, Ashley brought up the idea of the hunger banquet,” Kulbaga said.
There also will be a panel discussion on “Hunger, Health and Human Rights,” 2 p.m. in 400 Mosler Hall, featuring local farmer Joe Streight, co-director of Findlay Market Karen Kahle and Tina Osso, founder of Shared Harvest Food Bank.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
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