Imagine a long, painful ache in your stomach; a constant feeling of weakness that no amount of wishing will help alleviate. Now imagine that your children suffer those symptoms and the cure is something as simple as a healthy meal. Too many Canadians don't need to imagine; they suffer through days of hunger and sickness, wanting nothing more than to be able to put food on the table and provide for their kids.
In fact, more than five million Canadians currently live in poverty. Of those, one million are children. Poverty and hunger happen every day in a country that from a global standpoint is as fruitful as they come. Yet, more than five million Canadians find themselves standing on the outside and looking in at Canada's bountiful harvest and offerings.
http://www.lfpress.com/comment/editorial/2011/07/26/18470156.html
In New Zealand a 2002 Ministry of Health survey - the latest information available - found that 17 per cent of children - 83,000 - went to school without breakfast sometimes or always, and that 22 per cent of households with children sometimes or often ran out of food because of lack of money. "...children's hunger is often portrayed as one of individual moral failure and stigmatised accordingly." As a result, some parents keep hungry children from school to avoid being stigmatised. "If a few children go hungry in the morning then that suggests a temporary or perhaps ongoing problem within individual families. If hundreds go hungry morning after morning then the problem is structural..." Blaming parents "fails to address the causes of hunger and denies children the assistance they need".
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10741004
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