There is actually a project that makes a huge difference in the quality of life, one in which we can all participate. It is ending hunger. Persistent hunger (not just famine) and starvation on our planet takes a huge, not yet fully calculated, toll. No less than 35,000 of us (mostly children) die every day. It is the silent headline of every day’s newspaper. To envision a world without hunger is, I say, truly exhilarating!

In 1971, Joan Holmes, now the global executive director of the Hunger Project, took a stand for the end of hunger on the planet by the year 2,000. She declared the end of hunger as an idea whose time has come and generated a powerful conversation for that as a possibility. Nearly 5.5 million people have now enrolled.

Last year a new phase of the Hunger Project was launched—one for the generation of a conversation for the doability of ending hunger, and it includes the commitment to opportunities for people in countries where hunger persists so they can bring their own hunger to an end. Collaborative work with other agencies, grass roots pilot projects and the assembling of highly qualified specialists and policy-makers are ongoing. Specific results have been achieved. For example, the threat of famine in Ethiopia, which put seven million people at risk, may have been averted although the fighting in Eritrea and Tigre continues.

A shift in world climate from resignation to possibility to doability is occurring. Many students at NIU have made a difference in generating the conversation, in skipping a meal in the residence halls and in participating in other ways as well. What counts is your declaration of the stand for the end of hunger. You can do this with or without enrolling yourself in the Hunger Project. I recommend enrollment.

To do this see/call me, or write to the Hunger Project, 1388 Sutter St., San Francisco, CA 94109.

“If not this, then what? If not now, then when? If not I, then who?”

Clinton J. Jesser

Professor of Sociology