Addressing the Root Causes of Hunger and Poverty

“A bunch of my friends who did not come to the Feed the Children center are now killed, or at hospitals, or they are members of gangs. I think my future would have been similar. And probably I wouldn’t be alive today.”

That’s 25-year-old Jorge Arriola, talking about the difference Feed the Children has made in his life.

Jorge and his brothers started coming to the feeding center in his El Salvador town when he was six. They were desperately poor and lived in a neighborhood riddled with low education and gang violence. These young boys were left alone a lot, hungry, while their mother was trying to find work.

At the feeding center, he received a nourishing meal every day and was able to go to school—instead of joining a gang or working just to eat. Today Jorge is a bright, ambitious university student studying to become a teacher. He has a great shot at a bright future—but his life could have turned out very differently.

Around the world, the statistics are bleak. 20 million children under the age of 5 suffer severe acute malnutrition. More than 780 million people around the world lack access to clean drinking water.

But it’s also easy for those statistics to lose all meaning. The problem seems too great and too abstract to make a difference.

Here are some numbers that are easier to grasp:

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