The set of photographs represents events tied to the World Food Programme that took place during 2012.
This is Jonathan Dumont (@jonathandumont1), our Emmy-award winning head of video, who spent his Thanksgiving in the West African country of Niger.
During his trip, he went to a village where all the men had left in search of work, and met a woman who said she was headed to the capital to try to make a living “selling sand.”
Needless to say, the people you’ll see in this video at serious risk of going hungry as yet another poor harvest gives way to a foreboding lean season.
And yet, the situation in Niger isn’t hopeless, something Jonathan discovers after stumbling upon something you wouldn’t ordinarily expect to find growing at the edge of the Sahara desert.
As millions of Americans come together to celebrate Thanksgiving, it’s worth remembering that millions of children around the world give thanks with every meal.
WFP works to ensure that kids like these Niger school children get the food they need to learn and grow up healthy. You can find out how to help at wfp.org.
Amidst the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa, it can be overwhelming to think that the Horn isn’t the only region in need of help. Inconsistent rains in West Africa, however, have pushed the vulnerable Sahel region to the verge of a food crisis. The government of Niger estimates that some 750,000 people are in need of food assistance.
Mohamadou is a young boy from Niger who is severely malnourished. The enormity of need – both in the Sahel and in the Horn — can be hard to grasp. What all those numbers boil down to, however, is Mohamadou’s story: lots of young children are at risk.
WFP is stepping up nutritional assistance to children under two in Niger so that a food crisis doesn’t get in the way of a child’s future. Because behind the numbers of those in need are lots of children like Mohamadou with dreams that extend beyond the food crisis. Let’s turn those numbers around.
Photo Copyright: WFP/Jonathan Dumont
These women from the West African country of Niger are smiling because they’ve just used cash cards to withdraw money for the first time in the their lives.
We gave them the cards so that they could use them to buy food. Each one comes with a small amount of credit that women at risk of going hungry can use to shop at the local food market. They’re now able to feed their families, which is good for food security, and local food vendors get their business, which is good for the economy.
The only catch is that in order to use the cards, these women have to remember a PIN code. That can be complicated even for people who use cash cards everyday. In a country where nine out of ten people can’t read, these women had to come up with creative ways of remembering their PINs so that they could use them to put food on the table.
