Hunger Banquet allows students to experience problems of poverty
By Derrick Oliver
April 8, 2009 9:59 p.m.
Students at UCLA will have the opportunity to literally have a taste of class differences today at the third annual Hunger Banquet, a dinner providing an in-depth perspective to the causes and effects of poverty and hunger.
During the dinner, attendants will participate in a demonstrative activity in which everyone will be divided into three groups based on income statistics based on the World Bank Development Indicators.
The different groups will then receive meals proportional to their income levels, with those designated as low-income being served rice and water and the middle-income being served rice and beans. Only those in the high-income group will be served a full three-course meal.
“The goal of the dinner is to bring awareness to the problems dealing with poverty and hunger around the world so that people can be more proactive and (capable) in helping out the community,” said Raymond Wong, the Hunger Project’s administrative director.
Featured guest speakers will include Sylvester Coleman, People Assisting the Homeless West L.A. case management director, and Charlotte Neumann, a professor at the UCLA School of Public Health.
The event began three years ago and was originally sponsored by UCLA’s Social Justice Alliance, a group dedicated to bring about change concerning human rights and the environment. However, due to the Social Justice Alliance’s recent inactivity, Hunger Project took over as sponsor of the event this year. Hunger Project at UCLA is a student-based group founded in 1987 aiming to combat poverty through education, volunteering and community service.
“We felt that this was a good event to continue because there are not many organizations within the UCLA (Community Service Commission) that deals with hunger and poverty,” Hunger Project’s co-executive director Jessica Chu said.
Wong said the banquet is modeled after the Oxfam Hunger Banquet, which is an event aimed at educating the public and people in every level of school about the universal hunger problem.
In hopes of attracting different people this year, banquet committee members highly publicized the event in the dorms to attract first-year students, their main target group.
“Freshman have come to college with a fresh slate, and we felt we could spark their interest in our message about the unequal distribution of wealth among the different classes,” said Jessica Hoang, Hunger Project’s co-executive director.
Chu said that the success of the banquet does not rely on the number of participants.
“The most important thing is education about (hunger and poverty) and feeling the differences in society because how we live isn’t always how other people live,” she said.
