Bowl of rice teaches the reality of world hunger

Oct 17 2007 by Staff Reporter, Liverpool Daily Post

PUPILS at a Liverpool school were yesterday given a school meal guaranteed to generate hunger pangs.

Instead of the usual selection of cooked meats and vegetables they had to survive until teatime on a simple bowl of rice.

The aim was to show hundreds of pupils in the upper school at Liverpool College in Mossley Hill the kind of diet that means the difference between life and death in Third World countries.

The school selected International Rice Bowl Day to illustrate the impact of global poverty.

By limiting pupils to a ration of plain rice the school was able to raise around £500 that will be sent to an African charity to buy food for children.

As pupils entered the school canteen yesterday, they were handed tickets for their meal. Nine out of 10 tickets were for a bowl of rice but a lucky one in 10 were treated to a slap-up meal.

While most staff and pupils forced down their bowls of rice, they could gaze at the lucky winners, enjoying a roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings, and served by waiters.

The rice day was the idea of Year 12 pupils who have been studying poverty in Third World countries.

Around 500 students ate the rice, the main subsistence food for more than half the world’s six billion population.

Mykel Askew, 14, was shocked by the images of starvation that were shown during the school assembly.

He said: “I received the rice meal and although it wasn’t the most appetising meal I've ever had, I understand this has been done for a good cause.

“The fact that so many people die every day of starvation really makes you realise just how lucky we are. I can’t imagine how they manage on such a diet. I don’t think I could deal with a diet like that day after day.”

Connor Bowen, 11, was one of the lucky pupils to receive a chicken dinner.

He decided that it would be hard to survive on a regular diet of rice every day.

“I could last a few days I think on a meal of boiled rice, but not many. I would probably get bored of it after a while. I can see how hard it must be for the people who have to eat this same diet every day. I will definitely be going home and telling my parents about it in the hope that we could do something similar at home.”

The Year 12 pupils went to the school morning assembly to talk about the campaign to younger pupils.

They went to the dining room to hand out the meal tickets. Teacher Harry Lock said: “Money saved by the school by not serving the usual healthy and substantial meals will go to charity, providing food for 10 families in South Africa for at least one month. The school is hoping to raise £500 to give to charity.”

The geography pupils who organised the rice bowl event wanted to make everyone at Liverpool College aware that 800m in the world people go hungry every day with 1.5bn people living on less than a dollar a day, as well as the grim fact that every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger. It added a new meaning to a simple bowl of rice.

The issue of world starvation is being highlighted during the Rugby World Cup which is currently running a campaign called “Tackle Hunger” in conjunction with yesterday’s International Rice Bowl Day