WFP Launches Virtual Wall To Build Online Movement Against Hunger

Main Category: Aid / Disasters
Article Date: 25 Nov 2008 - 2:00 PDT

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The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is today calling on all sectors of society: students, parents, the young, the old, celebrities, sport stars, and politicians, to fight world hunger by posting their picture on a virtual web wall and to make a donation towards free meals for some of the 59 million children around the world who go to school hungry.

The launch of WFP's "Wall Against Hunger" will allow everyone to play a part in ending child hunger, simply by signing up to the innovative, new, web-based initiative.

"The push to end world hunger is one thing that people across all political spectrums, all religions, and all nations can join," said Nancy Roman, director of Public Policy, Communications and Private Partnerships for the World Food Programme.

Anyone who joins the initiative will be able to e-mail their Wall images to friends and bookmark them to social networking sites, so that this online movement can gather momentum virally, across the web. To see how WFP's "Wall Against Hunger" is being built, go to http://www.wfp.org/wall.

A number of high-profile celebrities, including the actress, and filmmaker, Drew Barrymore, who is a WFP Ambassador Against Hunger, have already pledged to add their faces to the Wall.

The "Wall Against Hunger" is being launched at the start of the festive season, just as people's thoughts turn towards generosity and giving. For a small donation, those who want to join a social network of people interested in ending world hunger, can upload images of their faces - or those of their friends and loved ones - onto the Wall, where they will mounted for the world to see.

Rising in the darkness of cyberspace, WFP's "Wall Against Hunger" is a collaborative effort that uses the dramatic image-rendering browser display developed by "Cooliris", a technology firm based in Palo Alto, California.

"Cooliris is honoured to be part of this unique project to help the World Food Programme rid the world of hunger. We're urging people to join the cause and watch the Wall Against Hunger grow as more and more people from across the globe support the effort," said Matt Wahl of Cooliris.

Additional support is being provided by Typhon.com, a French information technology company that is based in Paris. Typhon.com has agreed to provide all the internet-hosting needs of the "Wall Against Hunger", free of charge.

"As a leader in providing individualized Internet services to its clients, Typhon is pleased to support WFP in this bold initiative to leverage the power of individual concern about world hunger. We congratulate WFP and call on 'Netizens' worldwide to join us in building this great Wall Against Hunger," said Typhon's Jules Vo-Dinh.

Over the past four decades, WFP - acting with governments, sister UN agencies, and non governmental organisations - has helped to reduce the total percentage of world hunger from 37 percent of world population in 1967 to 17 percent today.

Over the past year, high food prices have pushed another 75 million people into the ranks of the hungry with a total of 923 million people going to bed hungry every night around the world.

"With the financial crisis now upon us, unemployment is rising in the developed world, which will soon translate into fewer jobs, lower incomes and more hunger in developing countries," Roman said. "Unless the world steps up, this will put all of our gains in jeopardy."

WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency and the UN's frontline agency for hunger solutions. This year, WFP plans to feed 90 million people in 80 countries.


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