Children Show Empathy With Indonesia's Rural Poor Through Art  

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Around 100 children aged 5-17 years old, from kindergarten to senior high school, gathered Saturday, August 29, in the botanical gardens of Kebun Raya Bogor to express their empathy with the rural poor through art. The students were chosen from 40 schools in the Bogor area, West Java.

The drawings will be sent to FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, to join a global poster competition. The winner of each age group will see their posters showcased in the multimedia UN Zero Hunger Itinerary at Expo Milano.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) invites schools from around the country to participate, to draw attention to the plight of the poor and food insecure.

Globally, more than 75 percent of the extremely poor and chronically undernourished people in developing countries live in rural areas, where agriculture, fisheries and forestry are the main source of their livelihoods.

In Indonesia, rural people make up about half of the population, and also here, most of the country’s extreme poor and food insecure live in rural areas.  

The FAO highlights the importance of social protection for the rural poor, as being fundamental for national economic growth, equity and prosperity.

This year’s World Food Day theme “Social Protection and Agriculture: Breaking the Cycle of Rural Poverty“ is a reminder to all people in the world to pay greater attention the needs of the rural poor and to provide them with some guaranteed access to goods and services that can help change their fate.

“Social protection is about a blend of policies, programs and interventions aimed at protecting poor and food insecure people, or those who may be vulnerable to falling into poverty and food insecurity”, said Mark Smulders, FAO Representative in Indonesia, in a press release Saturday.

The World Food Day Poster Contest is one of the oldest FAO outreach projects involving students from around the globe.

NZM