Junten Junior High School / Senior High School

　The SGH Core Member of the Senior High School 1st Year took a facilitator’s role at Hunger Free World.

　NGO Hunger Free World (HFW) in an international organization that works to raise young people with appropriate knowledgable and skills to address the issues concerning hunger in the world and they provide workshops and lectures to raise awareness about the issue. One of the SGH Core Members, Ms.Okada, took HFW’s facilitator training. Now Ms.Aoki worked with Ms.Okada and they took a facilitator role at the workshop on world hunger at Junten.

Here are reports from Ms.Okada and Ms.Aoki.

★★★

　We provided the workshop on November 4th to try what we learned at the HFW’s facilitator’s training. Eight students from Junten attended our workshop. 

 At the opening of the workshop, we asked the participants to write what they ate of the day, with who and where. Some students wrote the memories of special meals, such as “the breakfast I ate on the day of the entrance exam” or “food I ate at a food stand with my mother while traveling overseas”. By sharing such experience of food and memories surrounded the meals, participants understood that their daily activity “eating” is not only to keep themselves full but it is also accompanies memories. 

Next, participants watched a video of people in the world talking about their memories and food, then they wrote down their thoughts. We wrote them on a big paper and group them together, then later participants discussed their thoughts in groups. 

　One in nine people in the world is facing hunger. We discussed the definition of the term “hunger”. Is it different from “famine”? If so what is the difference”? We showed some data and graphs to explain the difference. 

So in the world, we have a plenty of food. 

Although one in nine people in the world is facing hunger, the production of grains exceeds the consumption of the production.

However, only two fifth of the grain consumption is used for human consumption. 

Yearly 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted in the world. This is about one third of the whole food. 

“Food Loss” (food that is eatable yet wasted) is over 6.3 million tons in Japan, of which 3.2 million tons are produced from regular households. 

　In addition, climate change as a result of global warming is greatly influencing the food production. 

　In the workshop, we aimed to help participants understand well about “hunger” and “famine”, then help them be aware of the issues that they did not know before. The workshop was a great opportunity for us to grow into the future and work to  “hunger” and “famine”, 

—Participant’s Feedbacks—

・I enjoyed a group discussion. I was shocked to know so much eatable food is wasted. 

・After learning about people suffer from hunger, I decided not to waste food anymore.

・We exchanged our feelings by exchanging messages cards and ideas. 

・I decided not to waste food anymore and eat everything. When I eat, I will not forget the feeling of appreciation to the producers and people who work to grow food and say “Itadakimasu.” 

★★★