Media Advisory: Mississippi State students host banquet to fight hunger
November 17, 2014
This summer, Engineers Without Borders students were given this generous meal in Simwatachela, Zambia, by a community grateful to be receiving a well. It consisted of nshima, a type of finely-ground grits; rape, a leafy vegetable cooked with tomato; and slow-roasted goat, a luxury not commonly served because of the value of the animal
What: The Hunger Banquet
When: Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2014 at 7 p.m.
Where: Moseley Hall
Students from Mississippi State University’s Engineers Without Borders chapter experienced what hunger can do to a community while working in a remote, sub-Saharan village this summer. Through the Hunger Banquet on Tuesday, Nov. 18, they hope to help their peers better understand what hunger means around the world.
Beginning at 7 p.m., the interactive event will demonstrate the grim reality of hunger, an issue one in every eight people experience daily, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.
Banquet attendees will be divided into groups that represent the world’s population in terms of income level. Those at the highest level will receive a full meal, while those in the lower groups will receive progressively smaller portions.
Engineers Without Borders members will be selling $5 tickets on Mississippi State’s Drill Field through the day of the event. The money raised will help support the group’s ongoing project to build sustainable wells in the Simwatachela Chiefdom of southern Zambia.
In a 2014 report, the World Food Programme said the world produces enough food to feed 7 billion people, but more than 800 million suffer from hunger. The organization also found that 98 percent of these people live in developing, rural countries—places where access to water to irrigate crops, sustain livestock or satiate people’s thirst leads to widespread malnutrition and disease.
The Engineers Without Borders chapter’s five-year project will help ease these issues in Zambia by providing potable water to hundreds of families in remote villages.
To learn more about what Mississippi State’s Engineers Without Borders chapter is doing on campus and worldwide, visit its Facebook page, Engineers Without Boarders-MSU.
Event Contact: Laura Wilson
Email: lw794@msstate.edu
Written by: Erin Boozer
Tel: 662-325-8098
Email: eboozer@bagley.msstate.edu