Physicians Against World Hunger is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization whose mission is primarily two-fold: to raise funds to support the Credit With Education Program and to educate the public about chronic hunger. However, because of the urgency of some situations, we have also raised money to help the victims of the Tsunami, Katrina and the genocide in Darfur. At this time, because of the economic crisis in our own country and the rising number of unemployed people seeking help from food pantries to feed their families, PAWH is also raising funds to support the Westchester Coalition for the Hungry and the Homeless.

There is a saying "give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach him to fish and he will eat for a life time". The feeding movement is absolutely critical in addressing the immediate needs of the hungry in our world, but how do we help the poor become self-reliant? The Credit with Education Program is the result of the ideal blending of microlending and education and is now recognized as a most powerful and efficient vehicle for breaking the hunger cycle.

The concept of microlending originated with Muhammad Yunnis, a Bangladesh banker and economist who founded the Grameen bank about 30 years ago to provide small loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.

The system is based on the idea that the poor have under-utilized skills without the know-how to market them. Micro-credit or miniscule loans are generally considered too small by traditional lenders and so the poor go unserved. Dr. Yunnis discovered that these people existed in a "cycle of debt" and were at the mercy of moneylenders charging 10% interest per week! A person would borrow money for raw materials, work all day, and then sell their handiwork back to the trader for a "2 cent profit"!

Rather than have a large lump sum payment at the end of a loan period, Dr.Yunnis structured the loans with miniscule daily payments in order to detect problems early and increase the borrowers' confidence. The program was then changed to weekly payments to reduce the accounting load with the term of the loans set at one year. For discovering and creatively serving this niche market in an extremely simple way, Dr. Muhammad Yunnis was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his efforts to create economic and social development".

However, microlending by itself is not always successful in breaking the hunger cycle because when a family member becomes ill the medical bills can exhaust all the savings and lead the family right back into poverty. It is clear, then, that education is an absolutely vital component necessary to break the hunger cycle.

Freedom from Hunger is an organization based in California that pioneered the educational component and has by now developed a number of educational modules that are being disseminated to other NGOs. By combining microlending with education, FFH created the Credit with Education Program. Through this program some of the most impoverished women in the world can access small loans with which to start a business and generate income to feed, clothe and educate their children. The average loan is $75-80 and the payback rate is an astonishing 99%. Through this program the participants receive education in health and nutrition. More specifically, they receive education in breast feeding, infant and child feeding, immunization, hygiene and diarrhea prevention, AIDS prevention, family planning and more. In addition, they also receive business education to help them grow their business. Credit with education associations are operational in many countries including Bolivia, Honduras, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Uganda, Togo, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, and the Philippines. To date, over a million families have become self reliant through this program.

This year, because of the economic crisis in our own country, Physicians Against World Hunger is also raising funds to support the work of the Westchester Coalition for the Hungry and Homeless. Comprising 78 food pantries, 38 soup kitchens and 31 shelters the mission of the coalition is to alleviate hunger and homelessness in our region. Because of the economic crisis here at home, thousands have lost their jobs causing many more people to seek help at food pantries. Food pantries are seeing more and more new faces every day at their doors. The population being served at these food pantries has been the working poor, but today it’s the newly unemployed who once wore suits to places of business, who are showing up in sweat suits to pick up bag(s) of groceries from the food pantries to help feed their families. Most of the 78 food pantries that are located throughout WestchesterCounty are reporting a 10 to 15% increase in the number of people coming to their doors everyday. The need is great but the supply is short. For this reason, the Westchester Coalition for the Hungry and Homeless will be a beneficiary of the Physicians Against World Hunger's 12th Annual EveningAgainst Hunger.

"Never Again" - The Unfulfilled Promise

Genocide, the elimination of a people on account of race, ethnicity or religion occurred no less than six times in the last century-Armenia1915, Holocaust 1939-1945, Cambodia 1975-1979, East Timor 1979-1999, Bosnia 1992-1995, and Rwanda 1994. In April 2004, even as the world commemorated the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide and politicians made solemn pledges to never allow another "Rwanda", there were already reports of deportations, massacres, and systematic sexual abuses in the Darfur region of Sudan. This was to be the first genocide of this century.

Through the twentieth century, first, while Sudan was a British colony, and then, during the various administrations that ruled Sudan after it received its independence in 1956, Darfur has been marginalized, both, politically and financially, by the Sudanese government. This northwestern region of Sudan, about the size of Texas, has had no representation in the government and has received nil financial help for health and education. To add to the frustration of the Darfurians, a peace deal ending the twenty-year North-South Civil War, allocated government positions and oil revenue to the rebels in the south but it did not address the issues in Darfur. For these reasons, in February 2003, two loosely allied rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), attacked government military installations. The government responded by arming proxy militias, called the Janjaweed, which have since engaged in massive looting, rape, displacement, and indiscriminate killing.

In June, 2004, U.S. Secretary of State General Colin Powell and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Darfur and condemned the atrocities. President Bush and the United States Congress subsequently declared that genocide was taking place in Darfur. The UN has called it the "worst humanitarian crisis in the world." The government-backed Janjaweed militias have been systematically eliminating entire communities and continue to do so. Government air strikes frequently precede these vicious militia raids. Villages are razed; girls and women are raped; men, women and children are tortured and killed. Rape has become the hallmark of this genocide and a means of ethnic cleansing. The Janjaweed also target and destroy Darfurian food and water supplies, thus, deliberately depriving them of any hope for future survival. According to recent reports of the World Food Program, the United Nations and the Coalition for International Justice, 3.5 million people are now hungry, 2.5 million have been displaced due to violence, and 400,000 people have died in Darfur thus far. The international community is still failing to protect civilians or to influence the Sudanese government to do so.

Physicians Against World Hunger has responded to this tragedy by supporting the victims of this genocide with financial aid that they may be able to better survive in the camps for the internally displaced people until they are able to return to their villages and rebuild their lives.

In 1974 US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger cited political will as the critical factor in overcoming hunger. Subsequently, President Gerald Ford commissioned a National Academy of Sciences Study which confirmed that lack of political will was preventing the eradication of hunger.

It was at about that time that Rev. Arthur Simon working as a pastor in the economically deprived Lower East Side of NYC began searching for a way that concerned Christians could more effectively influence US government policies that were having a big and often negative impact on hungry people in this country and abroad. In 1974 he and a few others launched Bread for the World, a Christian citizens' movement whose purpose is to build US political will for ending hunger. Its membership has grown to 50,000 and spans the spectrum of Catholics, evangelical and mainline protestants and orthodox Christians. It also includes people of other faiths and people who profess no faith but are drawn by the importance of its work.

One of its main tools is the annual letter writing campaign which is held in the spring of each year. During this time its members write letters to their congress representatives urging them to adopt policies and pass specific laws that help reduce hunger.

Bread for the World's other main function is hunger research and education which is carried out by the Bread for the World Institute. This research is probably the most in depth and extensive of any organization and the work is published each year in the Hunger Report. Bread for the World Institute provides policy analysis on hunger and strategies to end it. The Institute educates its advocacy network, opinion leaders, policy makers and the public about hunger in the United States and abroad. The Institute helps U.S. citizens tell the story on hungry people in their communities and see the connections we all have to hungry people around the world. We know that empowering people with information and a clear sense