Hunger: An unforgivable crime

“It’s a totally unforgivable crime for the world to take a back seat and watch as 300 children die every hour from hunger and malnutrition, yet the world has enough food for everyone and other relevant resources necessary to halt this unnecessary waste of children’s lives,” lamented Natasha Kaplinsky, Save the Children Ambassador at the launch of our global nutrition campaign on 15 February.

Overcome with emotion

Watching Natasha talk to the media at the launch, few people would fail to detect the passion, agony and frustration in her body language.

Natasha’s pain is even more evident as you walk with her through a video documenting her recent visit to Mozambican villages.

In the video Natasha engages freely with mothers who cling on to their seriously malnourished and underweight children, which leads her to further frustrations and feelings of hopelessness and desperation.

At one point, Natasha is overcome with emotions, breaks down, and weeps with the weeping mothers.

Natasha’s impact

Mind you, Natasha’s passion for the wellbeing of children is not just obvious, but it’s also contagious — at least to me.

As I watched her weep, I couldn’t help feeling solidarity with her, so I wept too, weeping for the world’s children affected by the silent emergency of hunger and malnutrition, and in particular for those children from my country of origin — Kenya.

Celebrities like Natasha, with her passion and lobbying efforts for children, as well as her tears of sorrow, generate enormous global political and social will, thereby helping Save the Children fight for life free from hunger.

And the good news is that in the last 12 months, Save the Children and its partners have made rapid progress in promoting the well-being of children and the reduction of child deaths.

Read our report — A Life Free from Hunger — to find out more about the simple solutions to beat malnutrition.

Can we generate similar impact at national launches?

There is a great need to generate political and social commitment at national levels. Subsequently, we need to explore possibilities of national-level goodwill ambassadors who are both passionate about the cause of children and also have the capacity to generate political and social will.

National-level ambassadors would ideally be credible people beyond any reproach who will be in a position to talk to governments, organisations and the public.

Please support our campaign — name a day you’ll do one thing to help end hunger

This blog was written by Peter Chege, Save the Children campaigner.