David Cameron, Feeding Centres and the MDG's

Only a few days in power and already the pressure is on! Our new Prime Minister David Cameron has a huge opportunity to impress Britain and the world by doing his part to reach the United Nations’ eight Millennium Development Goals.

These goals include things like reducing child mortality, combating diseases like HIV and malaria, making sure primary education is accessible to everyone and ensuring environmental sustainability. These sound like such big objectives, but lots of great work is already going on around the world to make these goals a reality. Like what Viva is helping to do in Costa Rica to meet Goal #1- Eradicating Extreme Poverty and Hunger...


Viva’s Feeding Centres operate in the worst parts of San Jose, Costa Rica. In these slums 42% of children are malnourished, and many have to quit school to look after their little brothers and sisters so their parents can go to work. Hunger and poverty are resulting in a lack of education – a setback for two of the MDG’s.

Through our partnerships with local churches in San Jose, our city-wide network is providing meals for 450 children a week at our Feeding Centres. But it’s not just us giving these kids healthy meals – we’re helping make sure they’re well-fed at home too. We’ve designed a programme to teach parents how to buy the most nutritious food even with very little money, and to prepare healthy meals for their children.

One of the major benefits Feeding Centres are having on their communities is, surprisingly, child care. Our intent in setting them up was simply to feed children. But since there are always volunteers in the Feeding Centres, kids can leave their little brothers and sisters at the Centres while they go to school. They pop in for breakfast, leave the little ones and go to school, hurry back for lunch, and then pick up their brothers and sisters on the way home.

For eight-year-old Rosita, this means not spending every day sitting in her family’s tiny home or walking the dangerous streets. Until she discovered her local Feeding Centre she had to stay with her two-year-old brother while her parents went to work. Now she knows he’ll be happy with all the other kids at the Feeding Centre while she goes to class, and they both have two healthy meals a day there.

If our new UK government can step up its efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, especially eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, then it will mean the world of difference to more children like Rosita. Eradicating hunger is the foundation that development is built on: giving children education, fighting disease and reducing child mortality will all be impossible as long as children are malnourished.

In 2000 the world witnessed its leaders agree to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. There are only five years left! So will David Cameron lead us in our final push to achieve these goals to improve the lives of children all over the world … or will he let the opportunity pass him by?


~ K. in Oxford


The MDG’s are not just for governments! Many different people, businesses, churches and projects will have to work together if we’re going to reach all these goals. Viva is helping unite and strengthen those people as we work to eradicate poverty, achieve universal education, fight malaria and reduce child mortality. Go to www.viva.org to find out more about what we’re doing and how you can get involved.