Save the Children – Food for Thought campaign

save the childrenSave the Children launched their Food for Thought report and campaign earlier this week.

As you will know from numerous posts on my blog I am passionate about reading and inspiring my son to have the same love of books as I do.  I want the best for my son and ensure he has a healthy, balanced diet to help him grow fit and strong both physically and mentally.  He is one of the lucky ones, sadly not all children will enjoy the same start in life as my son due to childhood malnutrition.

STC_Infographic_PNG_with_Banner-1-502x600The Food for Thought report highlights that chronically malnourished children are likely to be 20% less literate than their better-nourished peers.  Can you believe that 25% of all children in our world are chronically malnourished?  How can we let this happen?  Surely all children have the right to be able to read and enjoy the adventures that literacy brings and that we take for granted.

The report shows that by not having a nutritious diet, these children can be severely impaired when it comes to reading and writing the most simple sentence.  No amount of schooling will help, without a healthy balanced diet to go with it.

It’s time for us all to do something about this.  In early June this year we, in the UK, will host a Nutrition Summit before the G8 Summit meeting on 17th June.  The Save the Children Food for Thought report has been released in time for this Nutrition Summit and a number of our best-loved Children’s authors have supported it with an open letter to the G8 leaders calling for action to be taken to resolve this issue.

The Food for Thought report forms part of the IF – The Final Push campaign, where over 170 charities have also joined together to ask the G8 leaders to take action now on world hunger.  We live in a world where we can and do produce enough food to feed the entire world – we need to redistribute this food so all our children can read and write and enjoy the same level of literacy as our children, and that we take for granted.

How can you help?  The first step is to sign the IF petition – thank you.

 

3 thoughts on “Save the Children – Food for Thought campaign

  1. Thank you for writing this post on behalf of myself and Save the Children. It always helps when you compare how life is here compared with overseas.

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