Kansas City organization sees food crisis impact on world poor

April 18, 2008 - 4:29 PDT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY

For more information, contact:
Judy-Anne Goldman
Public Relations Manager
Christian Foundation for Children and Aging
913.384.7162
Judy-anneg@cfcausa.org

Kansas City organization sees food crisis impact on world poor

-IMMEDIATE IMPACT: Food crisis impact is immediate, forcing people living in poverty to focus more of their income on food, weakening their ability to pay for education, health care and other needs.

-FAR-REACHING IMPACT: Food crisis impact is far-reaching, undermining the path of opportunity for people living in poverty to break that cycle.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (April 18, 2008) In good economic times, families living in poverty in developing nations have limited choices when it comes to how they spend their meager earnings. It's always a challenge to put food on the table.

When food prices rise dramatically, those families have even fewer choices, and vital needs, like education, nutrition and health care, can give way to simply trying to provide food at all.

"One awful aspect of the food crisis," Dan Pearson, international operations director for Christian Foundation for Children and Aging, said, "is the way it destroys the opportunities for human development that could have taken place."

CFCA is a non-profit organization that provides support for impoverished people in 25 developing nations. The organization helps families break the cycle of poverty by adhering to a simple formula: Support skills that help them grow toward self-reliance; and let the need at the local level dictate how food assistance and other benefits are provided.

That assistance is more important now than ever. In El Salvador, project coordinator René Velasquez works with about 3,500 people who receive support from CFCA.

Velasquez sees that the choices poor families have for spending their limited budgets are disappearing. Families are shifting their priorities to cope with feeding their children, making the path out of poverty that much longer and harder. It's a critical situation for impoverished people who have support from CFCA and other organizations; it's even more significant for those people with no other source of relief.

In some areas of El Salvador, children have to end their education to help their family earn enough money to survive, Velasquez reported. "These problems, as a whole, create a society with a low educational profile, resulting in a nation of survivors instead of a nation of [thriving] citizens."

CFCA operates on the belief that education is pivotal in pulling people out of poverty. CFCA projects worldwide spent an average of 25 percent of their budgets on nutrition in 2007. It was their largest expenditure. Next was education at 21 percent.

The easier it is to put food on the table, the easier it is to keep children in school. CFCA supports sustainable agriculture to provide more food independence and open more choices to families for using their income in other ways.

If a country is dependent on imported food, that makes communities more vulnerable to economic trends, Paul Pearce, CFCA director of international programs, said. Part of the CFCA focus is helping sponsored families develop farming opportunities.

"Where possible, CFCA works with sponsored families on sustainable food production," Pearce said.

In the Philippines, for instance, local staff helped communities develop organic pesticides and improved irrigation. The farmers built up that resource, going from one harvest to two per year. Now, if rice importing is reduced, those communities have a greater ability to feed their families.

"We see that when local communities are empowered with more choices," Paco Wertin, CFCA CEO, said, "the shock of these critical situations may be lessened. However, because of the severity of this food crisis, the lives of all impoverished people, even with aid, are threatened."

About CFCA
Founded in 1981 and headquartered in Kansas City, Kan., CFCA serves more than 317,000 children, youth and the aged in 25 developing countries. Through the generous support of primarily U.S.-based sponsors, the organization provides basic life necessities and livelihood training so families can become self-sustaining, live with dignity and effect change in their communities. CFCA works with people of all faith traditions.

The spirit of caring and partnership on the individual level is a draw for people who sponsor children and the aged through CFCA. In January, CFCA exceeded $100 million in annual revenue for the first time. Ninety percent of that amount was from small monthly gifts, of $30 or less, from about 274,000 sponsors.

For more information, please visit www.cfcausa.org, or call (800) 875-6564 or (913) 384-6500.

-30-

Contact

Christian Foundation for Children and Aging
http://www.cfcausa.org
KS, US
Loretta Kline - Director of Communications, 913 384-7138

Keywords

Food Crisis

Category

OTHER

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