UK churches gearing up for World Food Day to help 'Give Hunger the Boot' in Africa

07 October 2013

Churches and faith communities across the UK have been getting their wellies on this autumn to help raise money for ‘Give Hunger the Boot’ - a fundraising appeal for the leading UK charity Farm Africa, which is working to tackle hunger in Africa before it becomes an emergency.

To help ‘Give Hunger the Boot’ churches and faith groups have been linking their annual Harvest celebrations to a wide variety of creative fundraising ideas. These include special sermons, collections, boot sales and many other welly boot inspired activities.

Some have also taken part in the ‘Great African Welly Walk’ whichis a unique challenge for UK churches and schools to collectively walk all the way to one of Farm Africa’s projects in Kenya. And back! This year Farm Africa has developed an interactive map on its website (http://www.farmafrica.org/wellywalk) where churches can plot their own ‘welly miles’.

World Food Day 16 October

Many of these church events are still ongoing and will continue up until December, intensifying around World Food Day on 16 October.

Participating in ‘Give Hunger the Boot’ allows small church communities to help tackle the pressing global issue of hunger which kills more people each year than AIDS, TB and Malaria combined.

Rowena Nichol, head of the Sunday school at Crieff Parish Church in Scotland, recently coordinated her church’s ‘Give Hunger the Boot’ activities and said this about the campaign:  

''The children enjoy doing the project. A visiting child went back to her own church and told them how hungry children in Africa were and if they could do a similar project. It is encouraging our children to think about food as a global issue. Having enough food is crucial to our children’s development and happiness, so as we celebrate harvest thanksgiving in our church and approach World Food Day, we think about children in Africa, many of whom go to bed hungry each night. For them, every day is a dayto worry about food.''  

All the money raised will go towards Farm Africa’s work with smallholder African farmers, providing them with the tools, seeds and skills they need to produce enough food for their families, today and every day.

Resources on hunger

To encourage churches to take part, Farm Africa has created free downloadable resources that have been used widely. These include ideas on how to fundraise, case studies, videos and sermons and prayers, put together with the help of clergy supporters. These resources are designed to help connect those taking part in the campaign with the lives of those in Africa.

To request a ‘Give Hunger the Boot’ fundraising pack, please contact a member of our Community team: E community@farmafrica.org / T 020 7430 0440

For more information on how your church can help us ‘Give Hunger the Boot’ in Africa, including how to download our free resources, please visit: http://www.farmafrica.org/ghtb

 Your church can follow ‘Give Hunger the Boot’ on Twitter via #givehungertheboot

 Ends

Images are available on request.

Interviews with churches taking part in ‘Give Hunger the Boot’ can be arranged on request

Farm Africa press office:

Laura Oakley, 020 7067 1252 / laurao@farmafrica.org  

Notes to Editor:

About Farm Africa

Farm Africa believes that Africa’s farmers can feed Africa’s people. It provides solutions before hunger becomes an emergency, investing in farmers to give them the tools and skills they need to feed their families.  It also trains farmers’ groups in how to market and sell what they farm so their families see change not just for this harvest but for years to come. 

To help more farmers beat hunger for good please visit www.farmafrica.org

About ‘Give Hunger the Boot’

‘Give Hunger the Boot’ is a campaign run annually around harvest time by Farm Africa. It encourages schools and faith groups to fundraise so that families in Africa can grow enough crops to eat, not just this harvest, but every harvest. It promotes welly boot themed activities including participation in our Great African Welly Walk. http://www.farmafrica.org/ghtb

About World Food Day

World Food Days was established by the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (UNFAO) and is marked each year on October 16, the anniversary of the FAO’s founding in 1945. The FAO includes in its list of objectives for World Food Day “to heighten public awareness of the problem of hunger in the world”.