World Hunger Day 2020: When is it and how can you get involved?

Aim of event is to raise ‘awareness to the more than 820 million people living in chronic hunger during an unprecedented global crisis’, The Hunger Project states

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In a world with a population of 7.5 billion, approximately 820 million people go to bed on an empty stomach every night.

Hunger continues to affect vulnerable people on a devastating scale, with food aid charities recently warning of an “escalating” hunger crisis in the UK due to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

World Hunger Day takes place on 28 May with the aim of raising awareness of those who are going hungry around the world and to spur those with means to support them.

Here is everything you need to know about World Hunger Day.

What is World Hunger Day?

World Hunger Day is an initiative that was created by The Hunger Project, a non-profit organisation that works towards ending world hunger.

The aim of World Hunger Day, which is being observed for its eighth consecutive year, is to raise “awareness to the more than 820 million people living in chronic hunger during an unprecedented global crisis”, The Hunger Project states.

“On World Hunger Day – and every day – we ask the world to come together with a shared goal of realising healthy, fulfilling lives of self-reliance and dignity for all people,” the company explains.

On the website for World Hunger Day, it includes several statistics about the way in which hunger affects vulnerable communities around the world.

These include the fact that 60 per cent of the world’s population suffering from hunger is women; 98 per cent of the world’s undernourished live in developing countries and that “hunger kills more than Aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined”.

“Hunger is not just about food,” the initiative’s website outlines.

“Hunger and poverty are inextricably linked to a nexus of issues including: healthcare, decent work opportunities, education, social justice, the rights of women and girls, the environment and climate change.​

The Hunger Project stresses how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting people suffering from hunger, with the world currently “on the brink of a hunger pandemic”.

“Influences such as this pandemic, climate change or economic turbulence affect millions of people on the cusp of food insecurity because of price hikes or breaks in the food supply chain,” the organisation says.

“The reality is, Covid-19’s impact is taking us further away from the Sustainable Development Goal of ending all forms of hunger and malnutrition by 2030.”

How can you get involved?

The Hunger Project has a network of around 500,000 volunteers, partners and “community-minded elected leaders” across 13 countries.

However, the organisation is also calling upon members of the public to raise awareness of world hunger and to provide support for those who need it.

One way you can support World Hunger Day is by donating money on the initiative’s website.

You can also choose to specifically provide support in your home country, in order to “invest in people around the world working to sustainably end hunger, poverty, and gender inequality”.

The World Hunger Day initiative has a social media toolkit online, which you can use to compose posts about the day on Instagram, Twitter Facebook.

The initiative is asking that people use the hashtags #WorldHungerDay, #WHD, #WHD2020, #endhunger #zerohunger when posting, in addition to tagging @WorldHungerDay on Twitter.

“If we do what we can individually, then collectively we face global crises together,” it states on the website.

“Write a post, share a photo, or a video of what you can do, as an individual to invest in an end to hunger.”