The Sustainable Development Goals have been developed by and for all countries. Implicit in this participatory approach is the acknowledgement that poor health and wellbeing, poverty and inequality aren’t issues just of the Global South but also affect people in the Global North. The SDGs encourage us to make connections, express solidarity and shared humanity with the issues and challenges facing us in Scotland and those faced by our fellow humans around the world.
None could be more pressing than hunger, malnutrition and starvation. After steadily declining for over a decade, global hunger appears to be on the rise, affecting 11 percent of the global population.
“The hunger we see in communities across Scotland isn't created by a lack of food, it is caused by poverty.”
Food poverty in Scotland
Hunger is also on the rise in Scotland with the number of emergency food packages handed out by the Trussell Trust increasing by more than 900 percent since 2013. However, the full scale of food insecurity is significantly higher with figures from other emergency food aid providers not collected nationally and a lack of monitoring of those adopting coping strategies like skipping meals. This has a direct relationship with poverty.
Jamie Livingstone, Head of Oxfam Scotland, explains: "Oxfam responds to food crises globally but the hunger we see in communities across Scotland isn't created by a lack of food, it is caused by poverty.”
Policy and practice
So, the challenge for us as educators is to sensitively make the connections. We can see why many teachers would be nervous about this. There is stigma behind poverty and hunger. We need to ensure dignity for our children and families affected. We need our policies to be informed by recent research, such as Children in Scotland’s ‘Food, Families, Futures’ project, addressing food poverty and its links with wellbeing and education.
Launched in December 2015 the project aims to improve the health and wellbeing of children (and their families) living in and around the partnership areas while working in partnership with families and communities to make the work sustainable. So far, the project has focused on working with communities in Glasgow and West Dunbartonshire, two schools in Eastern Perthshire and Irvine in North Ayrshire.
“There is stigma behind poverty and hunger. We need to ensure dignity for our children and families affected.”
Cost of the school day
Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland have also recently produced a new set of resources based on their ‘Cost of the School Day’ research, report and recommendations. These help us to see the hidden costs facing families affected by food insecurity and help to poverty-proof our schools and curriculum expectations, as well as think about the effects of the long summer holidays with no school food provision for families experiencing poverty.
Ways in
At a classroom level, there are also many resources available to sensitively support an exploration of hunger and food insecurity both locally and globally. ‘Why are people hungry?’ is an activity which helps young people explore their perspectives on food insecurity. It was developed initially to explore hunger in the Global South, enabling a starting point for teachers to challenge the assumption that we have too many people and not enough food.
However, the cards are easy to adapt for a Scottish context.
Deepening the learning
Oxfam’s ‘Making a Meal of it’ resource uses role play and case studies to explore hunger locally and globally. It supports young people to understand the global food system, where food comes from and to distinguish between hunger, malnutrition and famine. It also includes activities for pupils to critically analyse solutions to hunger – what are the ‘sticky plasters’ and what are the longer-term changes that can help?
Building partnerships for learning
Any topic exploring hunger should include (where possible) growing food and discussing the challenges for families around the world to do the same. Get in touch with your local community garden and your local foodbank and invite volunteers in to talk to your class.
“There are “hidden costs facing families affected by food insecurity” and we must “poverty-proof our schools and curriculum expectations”
Taking Action
Take time with your pupils to explore the different ways you can together take action on this issue. It might be that you join in with a local or global charity campaigning for global food rights or local universal free school meal provision. St Euanan’s Primary in Clydebank, organised a whole school initiative ‘I can make a difference’ where each class explored a different SDG looking at local and global issues. P7 looked at hunger and worked to support West Dunbartonshire Community Foodshare, after learning about those in the local community who didn’t have enough food for their families.
