If you have, can you imagine what it is like to be hungry everyday?
The problem is vast but here are some simple things we can do in celebrations of World Food Day on October 16. Prayer,Fasting and gestures of Solidarity.
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We propose:
- A PRAYER
- A FAST
- A GESTURE OF SOLIDARITY
- PRAYER
* A Symbol.
Look for a symbol that expresses the meaning of this day (a plate or a basket full of food and another that is empty, photos, a table with empty plates…).
Place this symbol in the center of the place where we will pray.
* Introduction:
The United Nations strive to find paths to solve the many problems that afflict hungry men and women. These include:
- Offering help to the billion human beings who cannot fulfill their basic needs.
- Offering elementary schooling to children who generally have to go to work to help maintain their families.
- “Empowering” women who have to neglect their families as they search for food.
- Reducing infant mortality.
- Fortifying maternal health.
- Fighting AIDS.
- Defending the environment because environmental degradation undermines the production of foodstuffs.
- Searching for allies to help solve the problem of hunger.
All of this is also, one way or another, our responsibility…
* A song:
Start with a song that relates with the theme of this day. A day that is, on the one hand, for remembering and praying for all our brothers and sisters who do not have enough to eat and, on the other, for renewing our commitment to “give them their daily bread”, as Jesus said to his disciples of old and to those of today.
* Listen to the Word of God:
1 Kings 17, 7-16.
Gospel: Matthew 12, 1-8.
Create a litany of phrases. Freely repeat those phrases that come closest to our hearts …
* Read a text on nutrition.
Drastic price variations, and rising prices in particular, are a severe menace for the food security of developing nations. The poorest populations are those that suffer most severely. In 2010-11, according to the World Bank, the increase in food prices has brought almost 70 million persons to a level of extreme poverty.
“The price of food: from crisis to stability” was chosen as a theme for this year’s World Food Day to bring attention to these volatile trends and to the possible measures that can be taken to attenuate their effects on the most vulnerable populations.
During the World Food Day 2011 we analyze the causes behind variations in food prices and we take the necessary measures to reduce their effects on the weakest members of global society.
* Other paragraphs from the Informative Note, which we attach to this proposal, can be added depending on participants and circumstances.
* Share.
Share in community, freely, what we are praying for and reflecting on.
- FAST
We propose a day of fast because personally experiencing hunger helps us to feel, and to be closer to, what our brothers and sisters feel every day. And include a prayer and a sermon on the theme of nutrition when fasting.
- A GESTURE OF SOLIDARITY
Choose, as a community, a gesture of solidarity with those who do not have enough to eat every day.
We suggest:
- Sharing our lunch or dinner with a need person who is near to us.
- Joining the dinner table of families in the town quarter.
- Deciding, as a community, on a monthly sum to give to those who suffer hunger.
- Holding, together with lay communities, a day for reflecting on this subject.
- Taking part in a NGO that fights hunger.
- Inviting a NGO to participate in religious or lay communities on this theme.
- Visiting the FAO web site: http://www.fao.org/getinvolved/ worldfoodday/es/
http://www.fao.org/getinvolved/worldfoodday/en/
Tags: Anti-poverty strategies, Hunger, World Food Day
