News

Amnesty provides perspective with a meal

In print | November 29, 2007

“Hunger” and “Banquet” are seemingly oxymoronic words and, put together, appear almost ridiculous. However, the Hunger Banquet is not akin to most Swarthmore banquets that are replete with cultural culinary delights. Although Amnesty’s International Banquet will offer food, the event’s main purpose is to provide an interactive lesson about global inequalities in income distribution and to feature examples of projects that have successfully improved impoverished communities.

Associate professor of history Tim Burke will moderate a discussion following the main event, which will be held on Friday, Nov. 30. The details of this “interactive” element, however, remain a surprise.

At the Hunger Banquet, students and other attendees will partake in the interactive activity while dining, after which Burke will make a short introduction speech and mediate further discussion. Then, Katie Camillus ’08 will make a presentation about microfinance, followed by several other presentations showcasing different projects that have been successful in dealing with various issues relating to hunger.

These short presentations are intended to encourage others to take action for these causes as well. Representatives from the student group Serving Homeless Individuals in Philadelphia will describe their group’s involvement in Philadelphia and experience with recruiting volunteers.

Also, several representatives from Oxfam America, an international relief group that works towards solving hunger, poverty and injustice, will also be present at the event.

Swarthmore has many groups targeting specific aspects of social injustice, such as Swarthmore Immigrant Rights, Class Activists, and even Amnesty International, with each group focusing on addressing various aspects of the widespread problems of poverty. “Having food is the most basic element to fulfill,” organizer Diego Garcia-Montufar ’09 said.

However, according to organizers, the danger of the presentation is reiterating the obvious. “Swat’s audience is educated, so it’s not just about awareness,” Aurora Munoz ’10 said. Instead of informing students through a lecture, the banquet will try to create a model of hunger to evoke empathy from students. Understanding is the first step.

Burke calls the idea an alternative to “hunger porn” or visual imagery of hungry people manipulating emotions of pity. “In between book knowledge and experience, people need to emotionally feel the scale of the problem,” Burke said, in order to encourage experiencing the gap between the “haves” and “have-nots” of food. The interactive experience of role-playing is an attempt to stimulate Swatties by giving them new emotional perspective.

“The first task is to witness the world. I am content with that … to give [students] sustained motivation,” Burke said.

Ultimately, organizers expect that participants will be inspired in a unique way. The variety of events will hopefully reach out to all the students. “We wanted to tailor it to the student body,” Amnesty president Linda Wang ’09 said. “For people who are already doing this versus people who are just getting their feet wet.”

“I got involved with Oxfam in high school with the Make Trade Fair campaign, and organized a successful hunger banquet at my high school, and have wanted to see it done on campus,” Wang said. The banquet will be an opener for more events relating to social and economic agricultural justice next semester.

The event will feature speakers who embody successful action uplifting communities from poverty. Camillus developed a microfinance program in the Acholi Quarter of Kampala, Uganda through her Lang Opportunity Scholarship.

Microfinance is a program that has been developed and furthered by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammed Yunnas through the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Camillus’ program allows groups of women to take small loans by combining their collateral. “People in the Quarter eat meals one or two times a day. People who are hungry can use the profits from running the business to buy food for a family,” she said. Camillus began the program this summer and will analyze its success for her public policy thesis.

SHIP, too, is an example of a Swarthmore-based organization fighting hunger at a local level. “What we’re doing is taking a huge issue like hunger and dealing with it on a local level, one bag lunch at a time,” SHIP member Nancy Chu ’10 said.

Ada Okun ’11, one of the organizers for the Hunger Banquet, hopes that the programs will inspire people. “One can care about these issues but at the same time struggle with the daunting task of actually making a difference,” she said.

On the flipside, Burke hopes that students will also recognize the difficulties in undertaking the construction of such a program.

“Ultimately, all the organizers recognize that the outcome for each student will be different but it will offer effective ways for individuals to get involved in the larger effort to fight global poverty,” Okun said.