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Tackling hunger one stitch at a time

I spend the majority of my time advocating for better health and nutrition for children but when I get a spare moment I’m also a closet advocate for homemade crafts.

This week I was very excited to have the opportunity to combine both of these passions – not once, but twice!

Making the world better with a sweater

Save the Children has recently launched our Christmas Jumper Day campaign.

On Friday 14 December, people up and down the UK will be wearing their finest festive knits to raise money for our life-changing work with the world’s poorest children.

One of the mini Christmas jumpers designed by Debbie Bliss

To help promote the campaign, knitting queens Debbie Bliss and Trisha Malcolm hosted a special knitting session for fifteen top craft bloggers (and some staff stowaways) at the Save the Children Living and Giving shop in Primrose Hill.

We all had a go at knitting some mini-jumpers that Debbie has designed especially for supporters of Save the Children’s campaign. They will make perfect stocking fillers!

Click here to find out more about how you can get involved in Christmas Jumper Day.

We’re all a piece of the solution

Earlier this week, I also took part in another crafty campaign that is challenging people to use their skills to influence decision-makers to tackle hunger and malnutrition.

Craftivist packs to help you create your own #imapiece

The Craftivist Collective’s #imapiece Jigsaw Project is part of Save the Children’s campaign to put hunger at the top of the agenda at the G8 next summer.

Using personalised jigsaw pieces stitched by people across the UK, the project will create an art installation to raise awareness of the issues of world hunger and injustice.

As well as making a jigsaw piece for the artwork, people are being asked to give a piece to their MP, to ask them to also be part of the solution.

This project is running until spring 2013 so click here to find out how to take part in #imapiece.

Everyone has a role to play

This week Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he would host a hunger summit ahead of the G8 next summer.

This will be a key moment for world leaders to come together and take the actions necessary to prevent nearly 900 million people going to bed hungry every night and more than 260 children dying every hour of every day as a result of malnutrition.

So over the next few months we have an unprecedented opportunity to ensure that both the hunger summit and the G8 really deliver for children.

As our report a Life Free From Hunger showed, the long-term solutions to hunger and malnutrition are complex. But if everyone took an action to influence decision-makers or supported programmes to improve nutrition then our goals would be achieved far more quickly.

The point is that everyone has a role to play in the fight against hunger. Whether it’s knitting a jumper to raise money or using your skills to educate your friends and local MP, it all makes a difference.

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