In a letter to the New York Times last February, I wrote about an emergency safety net plan to feed millions of hungry Yemenis suffering from high food prices.
Since that time, child malnutrition in some parts of Yemen has increased so much as to rival famine-ravaged Somalia.
Maria Calivis, UNICEF's regional director, says, “This year alone, half a million children in Yemen are likely to die from malnutrition or to suffer lifelong physical and cognitive consequences resulting from malnutrition if we don't take action. Malnutrition is preventable. And, therefore, inaction is unconscionable.”
Calivis adds, "Conflict, poverty and drought, compounded by the unrest of the previous year, the high food and fuel prices, and the breakdown of social services, are putting children’s health at great risks and threatening their very survival."
Neither UNICEF nor the UN World Food Programme (WFP) received enough funding during 2011 to carry out their full hunger relief missions in Yemen.
These UN agencies rely on voluntary donations from the international community. If donors do not contribute, then hunger relief missions have to be scaled back or in some cases halted.
So what can someone do? Take action! UNICEF has a relief fund for Yemen. The World Food Program USA is also hosting a Yemen fund. You can even sign a petition to help WFP fight hunger in Yemen.
Or you can take in a "silent guest." Starting in the holidays of 1947, the United States helped starving countries with a "silent guest" program. At mealtime, people were asked to imagine a silent guest at their table. Then they could mail the cost for feeding that silent guest to a committee in Plymouth, Massachusetts. This donation would buy a CARE package which was sent to hungry people in war-devastated Europe.
Today, maybe at your next meal, you could take in an infant child in Yemen who needs plumpy'nut to prevent potentially deadly malnutrition. You could send that donation to UNICEF which provides the plumpy so it can help treat all the cases of child malnutrition in the country.
Some of the countries who benefited from silent guest donations back in 1947 were Italy, Austria, France, and Greece. At that time Greece was recovering from a famine and facing a civil war.
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