University students assumed the roles of people of all nationalities and socioeconomic backgrounds Wednesday night to simulate the discrepancies in food availability between different classes.
New Jersey Public Interest Research Group’s Hunger and Homelessness Campaign fed students at their “Hunger Banquet” at the Cook Campus Center to spread awareness about poverty issues.
Lead Intern of the Hunger and Homelessness Campaign Stephanie Naling said some students think hunger and homelessness is a distant problem only found in impoverished third world countries.
“The campaign wants to be the voice of the hungry and homeless in New Brunswick,” said Naling, a Douglass College senior.
More than 2.5 billion people live in poverty around the world, and 35 million Americans live below the poverty line, she said.
“You may think hunger is about there being too many people in the world and not enough food, but really, there is enough food to feed every single person on this earth,” Naling said.
The real problem lies in the unfair distribution of food, she said.
The attendees were assigned a different socioeconomic background and then divided into an upper class, a middle class and a low class.
The upper class members were served dinner first, were seated at an elegant table and given unlimited servings of food, Naling said. The middle class members ate next, given unlimited vegetables, rice and beans but only one small portion of chicken, she said. Finally, the lowest class was served only rice and beans and asked to sit on the floor.
“Are they serious? We don’t get any chicken? But I need meat,” said Linda Kwon, a Cook College senior, who was assigned to be a member of the lower class.
The upper class members, including lawyer and University political science Professor Harold Rubenstein, handed out individual servings to the members of the middle class and gave the lower class just one serving to share among themselves.
The only way food can be equally distributed in the world right now is if the members of the upper class, about 15 percent of the people in the world, decide to give food to people who cannot afford it, Naling said.
University Professor of the Food Policy Institute Maya Nucci said the media tends to ignore and overlook hunger problems by painting a picture of food accessibility. This can cause disconnect between Americans and the realities of food, such as the way it is manufactured and the unattainability of food many people face, Nucci said.
The media also ignores famines in distant parts of the world, such as the Great Chinese Famine in 1959, which caused more than 30 million deaths, she said. Despite their large population, some people also tend to ignore the poor because they do not have a voice.
“As long as the media remains silent about hunger in the United States, hunger will fail to be recognized as a part of society,” Nucci said.
Rubenstein said the government decides a national poverty level, and people who fall slightly above this level are often ignored and turned away when they request help.
The national poverty level is $33,000 a year for a family of three, which is not always applicable to every state, he said.
New Jersey has a higher cost of living than a state like Nebraska, and the average cost of living in Middlesex County is above $57,000 a year for a family of three, Rubenstein said.
The two biggest costs for the poor are food and housing, and even people who work multiple jobs cannot always afford these costs. There are 49 million people in America who cannot consistently get enough to eat every day, he said.
Students do not always have money to donate, but their time spent volunteering is far more valuable than any donation, he said.
The Hunger and Homelessness Campaign believes basic human rights, such as food and shelter, are fundamental and non-negotiable, Naling said. The campaign is working to ensure every single person in the country has these basic rights.
“The problem of hunger is more critical now than people realize because of the current state of the economy,” NJPIRG Intern Alexandra Popovski said.
Many people do not have enough to eat in New Brunswick, and that is not acceptable, said Popovski, a Cook College junior.
“It [might] be more effective to teach students about hunger and homelessness if they were actually made hungry and homeless for a day,” said Ali Salfuddin, a School of Arts and Sciences first-year student.
The main purpose of the event was to show students what it felt like to not have accessibility to food due to social class, even though there is sufficient food for everyone, Popovski said.
Most of the attendees are part of organizations that work to help the hungry and homeless locally and internationally and have some background on the issue, Naling said.
At the “Hunger Banquet,” attendees had the chance to actually experience how it would feel to be discriminated against, she said.
“It is hard to get out of the isolation and comfort of Rutgers,” Rubenstein said. “[It is also difficult] to look around and realize that even thousands of people in New Brunswick need help.”
NJPIRG puts hunger awareness on table
Published: Thursday, November 19, 2009
Updated: Thursday, November 19, 2009
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