October 17th – The World Day against Hunger

The mobilization and protest against the immense injustice of poverty should be determined and constant.  Let’s make the World Day for the Eradication of Extreme Poverty a daily reference of action, of mobilization.

Make it a daily reason to get up early and guide our behaviour: it is unacceptable that everyday thousands of people, mostly children from one to five years, die of hunger, exclusion and abandonment while over 3 billion dollars are invested in weapons and military spending.

"I feigned not knowing / ... and now my conscience remains / sleepless / night and day”. We know. And we will make the struggle against social injustice, exclusion and poverty our permanent reason for living. Zero poverty!

Jean Ziegler says, "hunger is the most active and dreadful weapon of mass destruction." We are well prepared, with great benefits for producers of military devices, for protection against potential enemies. We are not facing hunger, extreme poverty and diseases that affect only to those living in inhumane conditions. The solution is to share, is to look after the key priorities that an effective democratic multilateralism may establish and seek: food, water, health, environment, education and peace...

Instead of increasing development aid, instead of contributing to national and international relevant supports, the appropriate grants have been "cut back" -what a shame!-... in Europe and in Spain as well as in the United Nations’ Program for Development. It is obvious that there is nothing to expect from the plutocratic groups who have imposed the globalizing neoliberalism.

The time for silence is over. Now we can express ourselves freely. Let us join our voices to demand justice for the victims, of those who survive in extremely precarious conditions.

“No one left behind. Think, decide and act together against extreme poverty" is the motto of ATD Quart Monde. Keep all together with NGOs and other national and international institutions in order to relieve and heal the situation of many of our brothers.