Foodporn VS Foodpoor a December of initiatives

Worldwide, 7,000 children under the age of five die every day from malnutrition-related causes. Five every minute.

We believe that being able to have enough food and right nutritional intake is a right.

As ASeS and as human beings, we believe it is crucial to return to putting human rights at the center of every project, especially those involving developing countries development.

With this in mind, our NGO cooperates and collaborates with local people to initiate, together, a fair and sustainable food system. We have dedicated the month of December 2019 to trying to raise awareness of as many people as possible about this tragedy, a reality that affects every one of us. It is inconceivable how today while there is a part of the world that has to deal with food waste paradoxically, while there is food for all, not everyone can access food and proper nutrition.

The fight against hunger and malnutrition will not cease until it is understood that it is necessary to abandon the logic of the market that spasmodically seeks profits by destroying that sacredness that belongs to food, thus, reducing a part of the world’s population to hunger. A society in which food has become a staple of social media and television programming is contrasted with a reality in which 11 percent of the world’s population goes hungry, while an additional 2 billion people lack access to a safe, nutritious, and sufficient meal

In this dramatic context ASeS has tried to make its contribution by producing a photographic project that recalls, already in its title, the mission of the NGO, explained Cinzia Pagni ASeS president. Foodporn VS Foodpoor, opulence versus misery, a collection of shots taken in Senegal by photographer Mauro Pagnano, which tells of a world far from the spotlight; a world made up of underweight and frail children, children looking for something to eat or waiting for a doctor’s visit for ailments almost always related to a lack of healthy, proper nutrition. They are mostly people who live in rural areas and like invisible people live on the roadsides looking for and begging for food. Touching photos capturing faces of women and children almost resigned to a fate they did not choose.

Parco dei Principi Grand Hotel in Rome, December 11, 2019

A valuable opportunity to present our social agriculture projects, to thank the all those who collaborate with us and share our hopes for a better world. Also on the table is our Foodporn vs Foodpoor photo book: we talk more and more about food and less and less about hunger.

Cinzia Pagni ASeS president: We are aware that this tragedy is a consequence of a system that always puts other interests ahead of the needs of the poorest and most defenseless. To them, we dedicate this photo book, as well as our direct engagement in this country through our cooperation initiatives. The world development system must be radically rethought if the right to adequate food is to be guaranteed and millions of people are to be freed from hunger; each of us has a responsibility to affect and bring about this change.

Christmas market organized by of Cia – Livorno, December 15, 2019. Fundraising for projects in Senegal

It is necessary that we become aware of this situation of great injustice, we must restore food to its value as an essential universal element, consider it as an indispensable cultural tool, different from country to country, but capable of becoming a bridge between peoples and for peoples. This is what we try to do with our international social farming cooperation projects: farmer to farmer.

Chamber of Deputies Rome, Dec. 18, 2019 “Foodporn vs Foodpoor,” the photo project presented by ASeS and Cia-Agricoltori Italiani.

Susanna Cenni, vice chairwoman of the House Agriculture Committee. Don’t resign yourself to poverty and hunger, follow up on the goals countries set to feed the planet a few years ago right here in Italy with the Milan Charter at Expo. Ases and Cia’s initiative is a nice way to tell the reality through images. Investing in women is one of the indispensable ways to change things; striving to defeat hunger is a goal of humanity, of all our communities. The Parliamentary Intergroup formed a few months ago is also working on this.

Dino Scanavino president Cia – Farmers: It is clear that precisely food, its availability and the ways to access it, still represent the elements that most define the differences and distances between the rich and poor countries of the world . And it is from these considerations that tangible support for the Foodporn VS Foodpoor project was born, through our NGO ASeS. In a historical phase dominated by images, in which our media abounds with chefs and talent-shows about cooking and almost 70 percent of the images posted on social media are about food, this photo book on the issue of undernourishment in Senegal seems to us a useful tool to shake consciences about the food emergency, as well as about the vision we have regarding food and its value.

Foyer of the Teatro Eliseo Rome, December 20, 2019. Fundraising for projects in Senegal

There can be no democratic world as long as a few have too much and too many have nothing. Breaking down indifference and apathy ensuring access to food for as many people as possible is the first step toward a world of justice and fairness .We must all return to valuing the land and the fruits it produces, fruits that are the property of all and not just the few or the powerful.