Hunger and Homelessness awareness week at NEIU

The NEIU community actively participated in the Hunger and Homelessness week this year once again; the initiative was to engage and inform the students about the hunger felt around the world.

   As usual, the Student Activities Office organized various events around campus, which included Oxfam Hunger Banquet and Empty Bowl Sale. Both events were part of the Oxfam America efforts to give statistics and educate others in order to fight hunger issues that countries around the world face.

   Oxfam America has been fighting world hunger for a long time, believing that solutions stem from both local and global efforts. Additionally, Oxfam promotes and supports innovative and sustainable farming that is a key factor in fighting hunger locally.    

   At NEIU, the events were both supportive and informative. The Hunger Banquet was a very interesting and educational experience for all of the participants; the slogan used during the event said, "Everyone on earth has the same needs, it is only the circumstances – where we live and what class we were born into – that differ."

   Veronica Rodriguez, Assistant Director of Student Activities Office, hosted the Hunger Banquet in SU 214, and believed that the event "illustrates the inequalities in the world through food." According to Rodriguez, this is hard for people to notice most of the time, but participants would see it through the food they received at the banquet.

   The event was essentially a social experiment in which visitors drew a ticket out of a box that stated their life station for the night—upper, middle and lower class. Participants with the upper class tickets sat at a table with utensils and three meals; the middle class group sat at a table as well, but with no utensils and just one meal.

   The lower class group sat on the ground and had only chicken broth for dinner.

   After all of the participants were seated and served according to their class, Rodriguez said that the equality and balance did not exist in the room, followed by statistics. She announced that 15 percent of the world is upper class, and are the wealthy who have access to everything. The middle class are those who live at the edge with their income, while the lower class is the majority of the world population who frequently goes hungry and does not receive the minimum required calories, which contributes to early death.     

   The Empty Bowl event was two-day long event. On Tuesday, Nov. 16, students had a chance to sit down and paint a bowl. All the painted bowls were to be sold two days later for five dollars. Many students participated in the event and enthusiastically painted their bowls, knowing that they were contributing and helping to raise money for hunger awareness.

   Rugen Reyes, Graphic Designer for the SA office, said that although this was the first year for the Empty Bowls event, it received much interest from the students; the money raised would be donated to the local shelter Just Harvest.