Siloam responding to Haiti food crisis

Siloam Christian Ministries is partnering with Childcare Worldwide to relieve widespread suffering in Haiti, one of the countries hardest hit by the current global food crisis.

According to former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, around 850 million people go to bed hungry every night. Now the World Bank is urgently calling for a global response to stave off increasing hunger and starvation in the developing world.

Thousands of impoverished people in Haiti dig through piles of garbage for food, says Siloam. The ministry has told of women forced to bake biscuits from a yellow clay that is combined with salt and vegetable fat to make a dough that is then dried in the sun.

Rice and beans are usually the staple food in Haiti, yet their cost has increased by 100% in the last six months, meaning that people can no longer afford to buy them and are having to resort to the clay biscuits. For many people, these mud biscuits often cause diarrhea, but they are their only food and help numb the pangs of hunger.

The food shortage recently triggered a deadly revolt in Haiti which saw large crowds march through the streets throwing rocks and chanting 'we are hungry!'

Siloam UK Director Richard Norton explains, "The poor are getting even poorer. There is hopelessness that seems to hang like a dark cloud over the whole country."

Siloam supports feeding programmes in Haiti which aim to help the most vulnerable of the poor, including children, the blind and the elderly. Now the ministry has responded to this crisis with a new family feeding programme. A consignment of donated enriched powdered soup has been shipped for distribution nationwide in co-operation with local churches.

"While we will not be a major player in combating the food crisis, we want to do everything that we can," says Dr Max Lange, President of Childcare Worldwide.

"We are on the ground with our dedicated Christian staff in India and East Africa beside Haiti. Through the establishment of a Hunger Fund we are organising the first step in the war on hunger. Please pray for us!"