13 Dec 2016
Year 10 Geography students gained first-hand experience of the global inequalities in our food system recently by participating in the Oxfam Hunger Banquet organized the HSIE faculty. Students were divided into groups representing high, middle and low-income countries of the globe; Italy, Tonga and Burundi to have a lunch experience they will never forget. There was also a group of refugees outside the fences sheltered by cardboard boxes with no food or water.
Those fortunate enough to represent the high income Italy experienced a beautiful and delicious chicken salad lunch whilst seated at a white linen covered table with placemats and cutlery in the school's fruit orchard.
Students who represented the middle income country of Tonga, found themselves eating sandwiches and drinking cordial, and sitting on chairs.
And then there was poor Burundi, a landlocked country in East Africa…. their residents sitting on the ground or under their cardboard shelter eating their meal of rice off a banana leaf and drinking water (explained to students it would normally highly likely be unclean).
The inequalities of the food system became glaringly obvious as students from Burundi (and the refugees) cast envious looks to those in Italy and Tonga; whilst initially the Italian residents enjoyed their meals enormously only to later feel guilty enough to share their bounty with the other poorer countries including the refugees.
A thought provoking social experiment to give our students a greater understanding of the problems of hunger and poverty.