iMedia: Starving Vulture Child

This picture was taken by Keith Carter of a starving Sudanese girl desperately searching for food, and to think of how few people in our society really care about girls and boys starving like her is unfortunately really sad.

It makes me think of our unit on food in my AP Environmental Science class. There is enough food in our world, but it is really unevenly distributed. If somehow everyone was able to work together, and the governments made a huge effort, then no person would starve. To think that there is food for this starving girl, but it isn’t able to get to her because of problems she has no control over sickens me.

Other people’s greed is forcing her to not only starve but also be malnourished and consequently have many health affects later in life.

Then, I look around in my culture and society, and I constantly see people over eating. It’s like when you are little, and you can’t eat all your food, and your mom proceeds to tell you of all the starving people in Africa. You then feel guilt stricken, so you ask her if she could please send your leftovers to the starving children, men, and women. Your mom laughs because she knows the reality of the situation.

Even if people throughout the world really did make an effort to send food to the starving people not only in Africa but throughout the world, it wouldn’t necessarily even get to them. There are extremely corrupt governments that are willing to exploit their people for power and money. The Sudanese, which was committing genocide against the Darfurians, could very easily  take the food and use it to manipulate the people; this would make the situation these people are facing even worse.

Its problems like these that ominously make me feel very hopeless about the world. How could a person do such inhumanity toward another person? Do they really not care? Do they not have a heart?

I know this photo has significant meaning and brings back lots of horrid memories or is reality for billions of people in the world. To think about this starving girl and the billions of others with as skin as thin as hers, and then to look outside and see people over eating SO MUCH FOOD is just ridiculous. Absolutely, REDICULOUS!

It makes me feel so frustrated and helpless. It is situations like these, when people don’t even have enough food to eat, that I wish the United Nations would start doing more to help. I know it is a humungous task, but I think that people throughout the world need to start putting more pressure on the United Nations to make it a top priority that starving girls and boys aren’t searching the grounds to find just a seed to eat.

The food is there. Now people worldwide need to start working together to help make sure it gets to people suffering oppressive dictatorships and government regimes.