In a speech to a group of backers, RINJ women said “Cash is king unless you have a 20ft or 40ft steel container full of fresh, non-expired, non-perishable foodstuffs, loaded and ready to go.”
“This is not our usual type of operation, but we can’t be in the places we are in and see the starvation we see and not do anything. Are you with us?” asked Katie Alsop of The RINJ Foundation.
by Melissa Hemingway
RINJ women tell FPMag the Pandemic starvation will kill more people than COVID unless something is done, say women running “Food for hungry people” campaign.
Photo Credit: BriYYZ from Toronto, Canada CC BY-SA 2.0, Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
The global women’s group is pleading for new backers who are willing to help put up the food products for literally millions of starving people.
On the list of countries the global group intends to feed are the United States, parts of Canada, The Philippines and Venezuela.
“The USA has 50 million people who are now food insecure, or starving. This is exacerbating the COVID-19 situation as well and driving deaths upward in the poorer communities of people of colour,” says Monique Deslauriers, the USA executive director.
“Charity has to begin at home on this project,” says Monique. “Canada and the USA are suffering badly. For us that’s home. Next in line is Venezuela and the Philippines. Hunger was already a problem in these countries for many years and now that has been exacerbated by the pandemic. If we can do some local hiring for the project and load in a heavy food surge to fill some pantries, that will ease the local pain and ease up on the food banks and the ‘soup kitchens’ so they can regroup and stock up. We can help with the stocking up. We need to buy time by building nutrition. We are talking about saving lives, maybe in the millions.”
Pandemic starvation will kill more people than COVID unless something is done, say women running “Food for hungry people” campaign. Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
CC BY-SA 2.0, Link
“We can grow our projects by adding partners and backers.”
“We have canvassed all of our regional directors and those that spoke up to say ‘this is doable‘ are from North and South America, plus Southeast Asia. The Middle East and Africa directors all said the areas we work in are regions too war torn to reliably get food quickly into the regions of greatest need without being robbed, or dragged into the myriads of black marketers’ from many of the so-called UNSC nations,” explains one of the women directors who does not want to be attributed for fear of recriminations in her area.
“Usually we go into an area of Venezuela and start testing for HiV/HBV and other STDs and as we do the tests, we give away a box of breakfast cereal, or a bag of oatmeal or something easily stored that is very nutritious and much in demand. This is what gave us the idea to to do some hustling and talk people into sharing food with the starving in Asia, South America and North America,” says Sharon Santiago of the South Pacific region.
“We want to do something for Bangladesh camps and the three Middle East nations of Iraq, Syria and Yemen which have suffered so much but the existing efforts there are failing because of security issues and violence. People of good will are being robbed before the supplies ever reach the people in need,” she added. “That’s why we are going to focus first on what we know we can do.”
“While we are serving special interest health and safety needs we want to help feed the hungry,” says the crowd funding effort on the IndieGoGo, an American site that has raised $USD millions for each of many project starts.
“We know for sure that there are tons of food products that could not be delivered because of the pandemic and we want what is not spoiled,” says Monique.
Sharon Santiago explains that the RINJ Women organization will not encourage distributing of meat such as corned beef and spam in cans because they can feed more people with grains and rice, vegetables and seeds.
Photo Credit: Youtube video capture. Pandemic starvation will kill more people than COVID unless something is done, say women running “Food for hungry people” campaign. Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
“We are striving for and intend to follow a clean distribution of Earth-friendly goods that are healthy and vegan as much as possible. Of course,” she adds, “under these desperate circumstances, we turn no donation down if it is going to become a safe food for hungry people.”
Methods of donation to the “Feed The Hungry” drive include CrowdFunding direct bank payment or Interac, Stripe and Donate via PayPal
Additional information has been published by he NGO at: “We are seeing millions who are starving. Who Can Help?”