PRESS CONFERENCE, SPONSORED BY SPAIN, ON 'FOOD FOR ALL' COMPETITION
Press Briefing
PRESS CONFERENCE, SPONSORED BY SPAIN, ON 'FOOD FOR ALL' COMPETITION
19970227
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
A global competition for children, the young and teachers on envisioning a world with food for all was launched this afternoon at a Headquarters press conference sponsored by the Spanish Mission.
The competition, entitled "Peace and Cooperation School Award 1997: Food for All", is organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fishery and Food; Peace and Cooperation, a Spanish non-governmental organization; and Airline Ambassadors, a United States non-governmental organization. With "The right to food for a third millennium without hunger in the world" as its theme, the contest is intended to raise consciousness to the fact that 800 million people remained chronically undernourished.
The press conference was addressed by the President of Airline Ambassadors, Nancy Larson; a consultant for the FAO on the November 1996 World Food Summit, Frances Vieta; the President of Peace and Cooperation, Joaquin Antuna; and actress and model, Lauren Hutton.
At the beginning of the press conference, Ms. Vieta, the consultant, noting that the World Food Summit had hoped to halve world hunger by the year 2015, said the competition would involve people who would lead their countries at that time, making it a useful instrument in the fight against hunger.
Going further, the President of Peace and Cooperation, Mr. Antuna, said the main plan was to bring the food issue to schools. "Our idea is we have big conferences, we have big people talking about big issues, but we have to bring these ideas to the school world", he said. His organization had staged similar contests in the last 12 years, on peace, the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations, migrant workers and refugees.
This year's competition was a simple one that would involve children and teachers, he continued. It was divided into four participant categories: drawing, slogans and posters, essays and curriculum development. The first category would have children up to the age of seven drawing pictures expressing their ideas for sharing food for all. Children aged eight to eleven would design posters with slogans to mobilize public opinion about food and about what should to be done in the third millennium to rid the world of the shame of hunger. Essays on the right to food, primordial right, would be written by students aged from eleven to sixteen, with the theme: "The right to food: creating a hunger-free world in the new millennium". Teachers, for their part, would create courses on "Nutrition: For a Balanced/Complete diet".
The contest would be held worldwide, he continued. The deadline for entering the competition is 1 July, with winners to be announced on World Food Day, 16 October, at the Centro de la Villa, in Madrid, and at a yet-to-be- announced location in the United States.
The main thrust of Peace and Cooperation was to bring big international ideas to ordinary people, he said. "Let us bring them to the stadium, let's bring them to the coffee place, let's bring them to the street", he said.
The President of Airline Ambassadors, Ms. Larson, said her organization was made up of flight attendants and other personnel from many airlines. Three airlines were represented at today's press conference: American Airlines, Canadian Airlines, and Northwest Airlines. The organization had decided to support annual children's arts competitions to make the world's youth think creatively about global problems such as hunger. The members of her organization would go to the schools in their communities to educate children about the "Food for All" competition. Such activities had already started in Canada and the United States. On the occasion of the awards, Airline Ambassadors planned to organize an event in the United States Congress on World Food Day. Since American Airlines had donated ticket prizes for the competition, she said she would ask other airlines for similar donations.
Continuing, she said part of Airline Ambassadors' mission was to educate the airline industry on environmental and social responsibility and have it show in-flight videos and articles that would educate the public about competitions such as "Peace and Cooperation School Award 1997: Food for All".
In her statement, the actress and model, Lauren Hutton, described the competition as an idea whose time had come. "There is so much food, why can't we get it to where it should be", she wondered. "There's certainly enough food to feed the world, why can't it be fed?" It was a good idea to have children thinking about the problems of hunger at an early stage. She said she would take the competition's posters to her four godchildren's schools.
Continuing with the press conference, Mr. Antuna, of Peace and Cooperation, said his organization's competitions were well-known in Argentina, Mexico, Egypt and Jordan. For example, the organization had held competitions in Egypt in the last six years. On another occasion, the prizes for the organization's contests had gone to Kazakstan. Then, next year's competition would dwell on "Travelling to Make a Difference", which might be organized with the Madrid-based World Tourism Organization. The contest for 1999 would be devoted to the International Year of Older Persons, and to "Peace on Earth in the Year 2000".
Asked how many entries his organization had received from Egypt in last year's competition, he said 600 had been sent for the contest related to the International Year of the Family. The winning school was from the Egyptian town of Ismailia.
Spain Press Conference - 3 - 27 February 1997
Rounding up the press conference, Ms. Hutton said: "I think the main idea is to make children feel they are citizens of the world and to get them feeling they can make a difference in their world".
Praising the work of Airline Ambassadors and others for volunteering to disseminate information on the competition, she said on a lighter note, "I was rejected as a flight attendant: the first job I was rejected from". "The only reason why I got into modelling was because I didn't get accepted by Eastern [Airlines] in Miami", she added. "My first dream was to be a flight attendant so that I could travel. And it was shot done almost immediately."
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