A World Reality Dinner – A small taste of global inequality

It is a fact that the world produces enough food to feed everyone, yet 1 in 7 people on the globe go to bed hungry. So why does hunger exist in a world with enough food for all?

Earlier this month, not knowing that I would have to step into the shoes of 1 of those 7 who went hungry for the night, I thought I would attend the launch of Oxfam’s GROW campaign to get a good feed for free and listen to some cool speakers.

However, on arrival to the World Reality Dinner 150 guests including myself were handed an ominous looking envelope in which our stomach’s fate was sealed… fortunately…just for the one night.

To each envelope was attached a gold, red or green sticker representing our identites and our respective low, middle or high income level for the night. Though I did not yet know, my green envelope would reveal I was a 30 year old Senegalese woman named Ngongo. Unfortunately, I was currently seeking a divorce from my violent husband and the laws in Senegal discriminate against women in my country and so it is very hard to find work to support and feed my family.

Tonight we would share a table where each person ate a meal representative of their income-level.

Before the dinner we listened to some amazing speeches from Master Chef winner and Oxfam ambassador Julie Goodwin who talked about manageable actions for everyday Australians regarding food wastage, a move to seasonality and just simply living with awareness. Dr Andrew Hewitt gave us a small taste of the inequality that exists in the world discussing some of its causes like the increasing demand for food, food prices, water scarcity, and climatic conditions. Finally Dr Bruce Lee from the CSIRO discussed food security and the solutions to our broken food system that lie in new technology.

All the while none of us seriously believed how disproportionate the meals we would be eating tonight. But, as people with a gold sticker opened their envelopes to reveal their identity, waiters swiftly arrived to serve them an entrée of either coconut prawns or a leek soup. The rest of us watched on hungrily. Then, those with a red sticker were invited to serve themselves from a buffet of Indian curries and naan bread and the high income group guiltily ate their main course.

Me and the majority of the attendees of the dinner who chose green envelopes were invited to help our selves to plain boiled rice and veggies!

The waiters arrived again bringing chocolate cake and cheesecake to the high-income earners and they shared their desert with the rest of the table even though we were all unknown to each other.

It was a really humbling experience for everyone and I learnt a lot – experiencing the anger, disappointment, injustice and hunger that many people feel on a daily basis knowing that others have more to eat than them.

Join the conversation at: http://www.oxfam.org.au/grow/