Social Issues subject of weeklong focus
Lindsey Cornett
Issue date: 11/2/07 Section: News
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Two social issues took center stage on campus the week of Oct. 29-Nov. 2. Hunger Awareness and Race Equality were the subject of special emphases..
Nearly 900 million people in the world go hungry and 15 million children in developing countries die each year. Sixty percent of these deaths are caused by hunger and hunger related diseases such as malnutrition. Every five seconds, a child dies from hunger. That means that every time a person takes a breath, a child has taken their final breath because of hunger.
These astonishing facts were on display on pizza boxes around the entrance way to the Maddox Student Activity Center on Monday to kick off Hunger Awareness Week sponsored by Global Outreach, a campus group that is focused on world issues such as hunger, poverty and AIDS. During the kick-off at the MSAC, students participated in a Die-In event by lying on the ground pretending to be dead to help attract attention to the cause.
"The Die-In is similar to smoking kills campaign and is used to call people's attention to world hunger issues," said Jim Wilson, Director of Global Outreach.
Several CLWs to raise hunger awareness took place throughout the week including the film "Silent Killer" on Monday night. "Silent Killer" features "compelling stories and characters [that] raise and answer questions in a powerful, exquisitely photographed documentary that will get people talking again about an international crisis that keeps haunting the world," said one movie review.
The battle against world hunger has been going on for many decades. On the movie's website it said, "in 1963, President John F. Kennedy declared war on hunger, causing the "Green Revolution" to dramatically increase food production and prevented the widespread famines that many observers of that time predicted. However, today the commitment is not so clear."
Thursday, Thomas Van Burg from Second Harvest Food Bank of Knoxville, was the keynote speaker in Thursday's CLW to talk about hunger in East Tennessee. This event was to show people that hunger is not only a third world country problem but it's right here in East Tennessee.
Nearly 900 million people in the world go hungry and 15 million children in developing countries die each year. Sixty percent of these deaths are caused by hunger and hunger related diseases such as malnutrition. Every five seconds, a child dies from hunger. That means that every time a person takes a breath, a child has taken their final breath because of hunger.
These astonishing facts were on display on pizza boxes around the entrance way to the Maddox Student Activity Center on Monday to kick off Hunger Awareness Week sponsored by Global Outreach, a campus group that is focused on world issues such as hunger, poverty and AIDS. During the kick-off at the MSAC, students participated in a Die-In event by lying on the ground pretending to be dead to help attract attention to the cause.
"The Die-In is similar to smoking kills campaign and is used to call people's attention to world hunger issues," said Jim Wilson, Director of Global Outreach.
Several CLWs to raise hunger awareness took place throughout the week including the film "Silent Killer" on Monday night. "Silent Killer" features "compelling stories and characters [that] raise and answer questions in a powerful, exquisitely photographed documentary that will get people talking again about an international crisis that keeps haunting the world," said one movie review.
The battle against world hunger has been going on for many decades. On the movie's website it said, "in 1963, President John F. Kennedy declared war on hunger, causing the "Green Revolution" to dramatically increase food production and prevented the widespread famines that many observers of that time predicted. However, today the commitment is not so clear."
Thursday, Thomas Van Burg from Second Harvest Food Bank of Knoxville, was the keynote speaker in Thursday's CLW to talk about hunger in East Tennessee. This event was to show people that hunger is not only a third world country problem but it's right here in East Tennessee.
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