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Back to Events main page The Torch Thursday, November 10, 2005 Volume 52 Issue 10 UMD students to coordinate an Oxfam Hunger Banquet DARTMOUTH -- The members of the UMass Dartmouth Rotaract Club and the Community Service program are the prime coordinators of the Oxfam Hunger Banquet, where they will promote awareness about world hunger, poverty and social inequalities. It is a fact that nearly 850 million people go to bed hungry every night, while there is enough nutrition on this planet to feed us all. Oxfam is an organization that is helping us realize we could change that. There are ways, by working together, to ensure that each person on earth has food in their hands. The banquet will take place on Thursday, November 17, from 6-8 p.m. in the Commuter Cafe and will be open for all to attend. Admission will be free for all, and dinner will be served. However, the interesting part of the night will encompass the way each person is served. Some people will be served and eat in low income, middle income or a high income social class style. Laurie Lorant will be the facilitator for the night, and two other special guest speakers will set the mood and make the experience unique to other events. Other clubs on campus, such as SIFE and the America Reads tutors, are doing their part to make this event a reality. Although admissions are free, donations will be gladly accepted. We invite you all to join us next Thursday and harvest hope for those in the world who are less fortunate than us. For more information, please contact Sarah Chouinard at U_SChouinard@umassd.edu. The Torch Thursday, December 1, 2005 Volume 52 Issue 12 Students learn significance of world hunger By Sarah Chouinard The Thursday before Thanksgiving marked the annual Oxfam Hunger Banquet at UMass Dartmouth, which took place in the South Alcove. Early in the day on November 17, members of the campus services staff, including Candace Sylvia, Norberta Vais and Pauline Moniz, as well as campus sound technicians, worked hard to set up the South Alcove with the appropriate atmosphere that helps to distinguish the Oxfam Hunger Banquet from other events that take place at UMass Dartmouth. Rotaract members and America Reads tutors, as well as Adrianne Schafer and Deirdre Healy completed finishing touches to this set-up from 5 to 6 p.m. The interesting part about this event is that attendees get subjected to the very circumstances that they strive to learn about. As people signed in at the registration table starting around 6 p.m., they were told to reach in a box that was full of cards with various scenarios, respectively labeled low-income, middle-income or high-income. Depending on the card that an attendee retrieved, there were three varying ways that he or she was treated. First, they would get ushered into the high-income section, if applicable, that included fancily decorated tables located scenically near the windows and only seated ten people -- that is, two people to a table. The middle-income section, on the other hand, was parallel to the high-income tables and was not so extravagantly decorated, with five people to a table -- not as intimate as the high-income section. If an attendee pulled a low-income card, they were abruptly ordered to take a seat in the middle of the floor that was hastily strewn with newspaper. Much to the chagrin of the attendees, most people this night sat on the floor for two hours. The reason for this differentiation of guests was to illustrate the proportion of people in the world who are, in fact, part of the low-income bracket, and are subject to live in poverty. The pervading reality is that such people subsist on an average of a $1 a day, and are thus hungry and starving. "Welcome to the Oxfam Hunger Banquet," read Master of Ceremonies and full-time visiting lecturer in the Education department at UMass Dartmouth, Laurie Lorant, at the onset of the event. "We are here today because 1.2 billion people live in poverty... 850 million people suffer from chronic hunger... A child dies from hunger and other preventable diseases every 2.9 seconds. That's 30,000 children a day." Lorant went on to say, "You may think hunger is about too many people and too little food. That is not the case. Our rich and bountiful planet produces enough food to feed every woman, man and child on earth." Thus, the point of this banquet was to raise awareness that world hunger is a problem that can be reversed, but unless poverty-stricken people are given the education and resources they need to take control of their own lives, social injustice will continue to plague nations around the world, including in the U.S., where 31 million go hungry. This banquet is named after Oxfam America, described in their pamphlet as "an international development and relief organization [that] has been finding lasting solutions to poverty, hunger and social injustice for more than 35 years." As such, this organization "provides financial and moral support and networking assistance to enable communities to control their own futures." The banquet helped to not only raise awareness about problems in the world that many students may not have known existed to the extent that they do, but also allowed an opportunity to raise money to be given to Oxfam America in their continuing fight for human rights and an end to poverty. Lorant conveyed such issues to the crowd that night and even engaged the crowd in some "musical chairs" of sorts, asking people to stand from the floor and describing their stroke of luck because they were able to swap places with some middle-income residents who encountered some mythical misfortunes that degraded them to low-income status. Eventually, it was time to eat, and while the high income attendants were served a three-course meal and those in the middle income helped themselves to a buffet, the poor people sitting on the floor shared two loaves of bread and some water. As the disgruntled attendants sitting on the floor began to resign themselves to their fate of hunger, one brave low-income subject, Monica Faria, rose up and shouted for a revolt that drove everyone off the floor and to the buffet line. Not a spoonful of pasta was left behind this night. Once the attendants were again settled down, with full rather than empty bellies, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography at Bridgewater State College, Dr. James Hayes-Bohanan, took time to explain the importance of fair trade versus free trade to the gathered crowd. He showed everyone a map that portrayed the essence of free trade as being a nice way to say that third world countries are being exploited. In other words, jobs that were formerly American-based are now moving into poorer countries where labor and resources are cheaper. Hence, fair trade is a better option because in ensures that other countries are not being taken for granted. New club leader, Adrianne Schafer of the UMD Social Change Society, described the idea of fair trade as "ensuring that family farmers and artisans worldwide are receiving a fair price for their products by giving them more direct access to the market." The second speaker of the banquet was Wendy Garf-Lipp, Director of Programming for the Girl Scout Council in Southeastern, MA. She boisterously took center stage after her introduction and immediately asked for two volunteers from the crowd. As student Catherine Jassie and Associate Dean of the CCB Matthew Roy approached the front of the room, Garf-Lipp gave them the simple instruction to read cards that were sitting at the front table out loud as quickly as possible, and then asked them to discuss the relevance among the names. She then proceeded to engage the rest of the attendants in humming the Jeopardy tune during Jassie and Roy's discussion, and at the end Jassie announced the answer as "organizations with a conscience." Garf-Lipp congratulated them for the correct response and went on to explain attributes of several of the listed organizations that coincided with the betterment of mankind. Specifically, her purpose was to elevate eating into a community service opportunity by motivating the attendants to use their power as consumers to better the world. At the close of the banquet as people were leaving, they passed by a table full of handicrafts sold by a nonprofit organization called Ten Thousand Villages, whose mission is to "provide vital, fair income to Third World people by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America." The crafts included intricately woven bracelets and rings, as well as small trinkets, such as angels or candles and various other items. There were 110 attendants at this year's Oxfam Hunger Banquet, which makes a record turnout for UMass Dartmouth, and a total of $339.41 was donated. Additionally, the members of the Fall River Rotary, who sponsor the UMD Rotaract club, are giving $360 raised by their million-dollar meal to Oxfam America on behalf of the UMass Dartmouth hunger banquet, making a combined total of approximately $700. The money raised by this banquet is specifically being used to help aide the victims of the Pakistani Earthquake. Attendee and Vice President of the UMD Social Change Society, Amanda Mayers, felt strongly about the impact the banquet made on students. "The audience was eager to hear what the speakers had to say," she observed. "The banquet was an opportunity to donate money, and gain useful information. Actions that promote social awareness and change are precisely the goal of the new [UMD Social Change Society] group on campus." Students attended this year's hunger banquet and generously portrayed their compassion for those in the world who are in need. They left empowered by the knowledge that will help sustain awareness about important issues, with a keener sense that we all have the ability to do good for the betterment of mankind. Click here for photos of the event! |
Last Updated On: 11/20/06
