Fikremariam Tesfaye
2 May 2008
Addis Ababa — The UN World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday that its annual sponsored walk to raise awareness of global hunger and to secure funds to assist school children living in drought-prone areas of Ethiopia will this year take place on 1 June.
WFP is committed to fighting the battle against hunger, and we actively encourage people come out and support us on Sunday 01 June, said Mohamed Diab, WFP Country Director in Ethiopia at the Hilton.
"We welcome the participation from the local community, civil society, employees, family and friends of staff from WFP, as well as from other UN agencies and humanitarian and corporate groups." WFP's "Walk the World" events will take place in Addis Ababa, Awassa, Deghabur, Dessie, DireDawa, Gambella, Jijiga, Mekele and Adama. All the events are scheduled to begin at the same time, 10.00A.M. Sponsors of WFP Ethiopia's event in 2008 include, Ethiopian Airlines, the Hilton Hotel, Abu Walad Biscuits and the Edna Mall, according to the UN body.
In 2007, over 500, 000 people in hundreds of location worldwide participated in WFP walk the World events- literally waking the world to call for an end to child hunger, straddling over 40 countries and crossing 24 time zones in 24 hours.
Funds raised from pledges secured before the walks will support WFP's global Food for Education campaign that aims to ensure that every child has the opportunity to learn basic reading, writing and arithmetic.
There are 59 million children in the world, who go to school hungry. In Ethiopia, WFP is currently assisting 414,000 of these hungry school children, in 770 schools located in six, predominantly drought-prone regions of the country. School children are provided with both a basic education and a daily, nutritious meal.
"In Ethiopia it requires just eleven USA cents a day for WFP to keep a child in school," said Mohamed Diab, WFO Country Director in Ethiopia. "We are helping to nourish children's bodies as well as their minds, but we need to raise funds to continue doing so".
Research has shown that the incentive of a hot midday meal increases annual enrolment rates in schools where WFP's Food for Education porogrammes operates, a marked improvement in academic performance has also been registered, since finding s confirm that children are better able to concentrate ion heir studies if they are not hungry.
"We need to keep the issue of hunger high on the agenda and to show how collectively we can transform the lives of the world's poorest children. It is a shocking fact that a child dies every five seconds from hunger and hunger-related diseases," said Diab.
"More people die due to hunger and malnutrition than from AIDS, malarial and tuberculosis combined. There are 854 million people in the world who know what is like to be hungry, and who are entitled to know, like us, where their next meal is coming from," Diab stated.
WFP in 2008 plans to feed more than 70 mil people around 80 countries.
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For over 300 years, South Africans have been subjugated and tortured by White (European) apartheid. We Ethiopians especially the Oromo people are being tortured by black (African) apartheid. You may be surprised to know when Meles Zenawi and his Tigray minority ethnic mafia controlled "political party", massacring & oppressing the majority, if not exaggerated the third largest Ethiopian ethnic group in Africa. But as allay to USA, Meles Zenawi's dictatorship may be ignored by the so-called "freedom-loving" Western allies. Even when the United States became involved in the conflict in neighboring Somalia, it chose Ethiopia as its regional partner, providing support for former guerrilla leader Meles Zenawi. The U.S. has even given its approval to North Korea’s Kim Jong-il to sell weapons to Meles Zenawi. A former medical student, Meles Zenawi began his political career by joining a Stalinist guerilla group in 1974. Twenty-one years later he gained power after overthrowing Ethiopia’s much-reviled dictator, Mengistu Haile Mariam. In order to satisfy Western demands for a multi-party democracy, Meles created puppet parties for each of the nation’s major ethnic groups, while the real parties boycotted his elections. In 1998, he subjected his people to an unnecessary border war with Eritrea that caused thousands of deaths. He agreed to international arbitration to settle the border, but when the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission ruled against him, Meles refused to abide by the decision and kept for Ethiopia land that belonged to Eritrea. Meles Zenawi's ethnic Tigray mafia dictatorship in Ethiopia as abhorrent as it is, it remains to be seen if it can stand the test of time & the Ethiopian people's volcano, cooking under his ethnic dictatorship.
We all know that Meles is dictator, selfish, divisive, sectarian, and an elite who destabilizing the nation of Ethiopia for the sake of his own and his cliques' ends. No leader has Ethiopia or any other world has seen ones own son selling his nation state for the sake of selfish interests. Even Adolf Hitler, Benito Musoloni, Napoleon, Alexander, Nabucadrzer, or Nero, even Mengistu Hailemariam. Whatever sins they had, they liked their country even in their blind minds. However, although his tactics are poor and he is waging a type of proxy war, his fight against terrorism has some positive element. He must correct his methods and his attitudes. The Ethiopian people can excuse him if he honestly repents. So would God Teka