Have you ever been on the way home from work or school and felt a pang of hunger? You might end up going to the nearest restaurant or ask your parents for some food quickly so you could fulfill your desire. Some, although, can’t do that. Throughout the world, many people are faced with the daunting issue of prolonged hunger, and it is something they cannot put to bed quite easily, mainly due to where hunger is stemmed from. It’s caused by three common problems: poverty, conflict, and weather-related events. These widespread matters then lead to about 811 million people going to bed hungry each night from around the world [1]. Even then, the amount of people who stay hungry come from many specific countries, one of them being India. In this nation, being filled with impoverished families, over 150 million people have to face the agony of being deprived of food for lengthy periods of time. Children also face this calamity, with 20% of children under the age of five being underweight [2]. Can you imagine a small speck of a kid having to bear the torment of not having food, a necessity every day in a life like ours? 

Children are the basis of our society. Through them, we are able to teach what we learn and hope they achieve more than we did in our lifetime. In India, although, children facing hunger may concentrate more on getting food than scoring high grades on their next exam, which is usually a typical concern in everyday children and adolescents . Facing hunger in the beginning periods of life can lead to many different side effects, such as stunting growth, isolation, and many more [3]. Many kids even feel ashamed when discussing their food insecurity with others as many media sources display in a negative way. This can lead to the children not getting the help they need, leading to possible long term effects such as chronic illnesses, other psychological issues and increasingly common poor health conditions. Due to all of this, more than 3.1 million children under 5 die due to prolonged hunger [4]. This massive number would take a huge amount of food to fix, but many people are working towards fixing this crisis throughout the world. 

There are many different solutions and plans to combat hunger in different countries. Some say to donate food or money to a local non-profit, others say access to credit and loans in these underdeveloped areas can also help by creating an opportunity for someone in poverty to start a business, and another successful method has been to teach locals around the area about how to successfully farm vegetables and fruit in order to keep up with their family’s needs and possibly making a profit as well, leading to a successful business [5]. While these are all effective methods, education is the most plausible method out of them all. It paves the path to make sure that a child can get a successful job, which in today’s society is one of the best ways to support yourself and make sure that you can sustain a spot above the poverty line. Even then, there are many non-profits and aid from the government to help spread the solutions thought about throughout India. At our non-profit organization named I LIGHT GLOBAL, we organize studying sessions for underprivileged students, whether through digital methods or in person. In these sessions, we also provide them food so they can focus on the educational task at hand. Learning is what will get them out of their situation, and we make sure they focus on this and not about other things nagging them, like food.

Written By: Ankit Gupta (8th Grade)

1- Source: https://www.actionagainsthunger.org/world-hunger-facts-statistics 

2- Source: https://www.indiafoodbanking.org/hunger

3- Source: https://www.wfp.org/countries/india 

4- Source: https://ffl.org/14887/help-child-hunger/ 

5- Source: https://borgenproject.org/10-ways-stop-world-hunger/