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Togo
Crushing Inflation: Agossou and Kayissan’s Story
This young family pray that, through their children, their life situation will change.
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action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/740888.cloudwaysapps.com/jawkdvuude/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114World hunger is rising. The number of people on our planet with insufficient food has more than doubled since 2019.
This crisis is complex and the need is staggering. But we cannot turn away from our global neighbours. We’ve created this digital experience to help you understand and connect with the individual people and stories behind the statistics.
You can make a difference. You can answer hunger with hope.
Compassion is a Christian child development charity with over 70 years’ experience that seeks to put love in action and release children from poverty in Jesus’ name.
Answer hunger with hope.
Compassion is a global network of over 40 countries that has served vulnerable children and families for more than seven decades. We exist to see children released from poverty in Jesus’ name.
With special thanks to the Compassion Collective research panel for your insights. You have helped shape the creation of this website.
Who is Compassion?
Compassion is a global network of over 40 countries that has served vulnerable children and families living in poverty for more than 70 years. We exist to see children released from poverty in Jesus’ name.
How will you share the messages of hope?
Messages of hope will be collectively shared with our global neighbours who live and work in the Compassion partner countries most affected by the global food crisis. They will be able to view and share the videos with friends, family and colleagues to bring encouragement and hope during hard times.
How can I share this experience with others?
You can use your voice to raise awareness of the global food crisis and bring urgent relief where its needed most. You can use social media, email or any other ways you can think of to share this website with friends, family and colleagues today. Please encourage them to upload their own message of hope. For social media posts, use the hashtag #AnswerHungerWithHope
How can I be praying for children and their families during the global food crisis?
Thank you for joining us in prayer for those affected by food insecurity.
Why can’t I find my message of hope on the website?
Thanks so much for submitting your video. New messages will be reviewed and added to this website daily. Different videos will be shown on different days, so check back later to see if you can find yours.
Can I request for my message of hope to be removed?
Yes, please email our team at compassion@compassion.com.au or call 1300 22 44 53 and we can take down your content.
How can I contact the owner of this site?
Compassion Australia
compassion@compassion.com.au
1300 22 44 53
30 Warabrook Boulevard,
Warabrook NSW 2304 Australia
ABN: 67 001 692 566
The number of people on our planet with insufficient food has more than doubled in just three years, creating a humanitarian emergency we cannot ignore.
There isn’t a shortage of food in the world. Instead, the blame falls on the skyrocketing cost of food and its unequal and disrupted distribution. At least 345 million people worldwide currently face acute food insecurity—a 250 per cent increase since 2019.
According to The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation: Food Insecurity Scale, severe food insecurity is when a person hasn’t eaten for a day or more.
Climate
Conflict
Costs
COVID-19
This young family pray that, through their children, their life situation will change.
Burkina Faso is one of the poorest countries in the world. Hunger is caused by a complex and agonising mix of crises, with internal conflict mostly to blame. Ongoing violence since 2016 has left over two million Burkinabés displaced and with little means of rebuilding their lives.
In Colombia, food security’s enemy is conflict. For the past 50 years, internal conflict has seen at least five million Colombians displaced by violence. Nearly half the population live in poverty as a result. The nation’s food bank has labelled hunger levels as critical.
Decades of instability, famine and widespread disease have left millions of Ethiopians living in extreme poverty. Soaring food prices mean the gap between income and what a family’s money can buy grows wider each day. Infant and child mortality rates are high and malnutrition is common.
The cost of food in Ghana jumps higher each month. Hunger is worse in the north, where persistent drought has inflamed inequality between the north and south. For Ghanaian children in poverty, the wait between meals grows longer, and the threat of trafficking and forced labour draw nearer.
Haiti faces a perfect storm of disasters: the lingering effects of COVID-19, devastating earthquakes, ongoing political unrest and rampant inflation. Each severe in their own right, the combination of these adversities has created a humanitarian crisis in Haiti unlike any other.
Kenya is facing its worst drought in 40 years—four consecutive rainy seasons have failed throughout the Horn of Africa. Crops and livestock have been decimated, and local children and their families walk for days in search of water to drink.
Since Sri Lanka defaulted on its debts in early 2022, the entire country has experienced dire fuel shortages, daily electricity cuts and queues of thousands waiting to buy basic groceries. This island nation is also highly susceptible to devastating natural disasters like tsunamis.
In Togo, prolonged droughts and disease epidemics have a devastating effect on livelihoods and access to food. Togo is also highly dependent on imports of food and other resources. International crises quickly exacerbate hunger for Togolese people.
Many Ugandans continue to deal with the aftermath of the brutal two-decade long civil war which terrorised the country’s north until 2006 and created a severe humanitarian crisis. Since then, prolonged drought, pests and diseases have choked agricultural production.
As the sun sets over the sand dunes of La Guajira, Marina tells her six children to go to bed. It’s their dinnertime and the family haven’t eaten all day. The sooner they fall asleep, the sooner they’ll be distracted from their growling stomachs.
As the sun sets over the sand dunes of La Guajira, Marina tells her six children to go to bed. It’s their dinnertime and the family haven’t eaten all day. The sooner they fall asleep, the sooner they’ll be distracted from their growling stomachs.
Marina is the sole income earner for her family. She picks up extra work wherever she can, washing dishes and cleaning homes. No matter how hard Marina works, it seems impossible to keep up with rising food prices. At the start of 2022, half a kilogram of meat cost her 9,500 pesos. By the end of the year, the same amount cost more than double that, and meat was pushed well out of her budget.
Enis is a pastor at the local Compassion child development centre where Marina’s 10-year-old son Santiago is registered. “When children come here, we can provide them at least one meal for that day,” says Enis. “If they don’t have food at home, they will at least have a nutritious lunch at the centre.”
With help from Compassion, the church also delivers food baskets to children’s homes so their families don’t miss out.
“Thank you for helping children who ask God for food—and hope for Him to respond,” says Enis. “You are bringing hope to children and families.”
Each of us is affected by increasing food prices, but none more so than children already living in poverty who face malnutrition that can steal their lives.
As food prices climb, so do hunger and malnutrition in young children. A child in poverty begins to suffer from severe wasting every 60 seconds, according to UNICEF.
The impact of childhood malnutrition is catastrophic and leads to:
“Hearing my children cry out of hunger is very painful,” says Ayitevi, a mother living in Togo. Her husband Aboni feels the same, often losing sleep over their situation. “It gives me so much sorrow when we cannot afford food,” he says.
“Hearing my children cry out of hunger is very painful,” says Ayitevi, a mother living in Togo. Her husband Aboni feels the same, often losing sleep over their situation. “It gives me so much sorrow when we cannot afford food,” he says.
With the significant increase in food prices in Togo, this young couple can no longer meet their family’s basic needs. Aboni resorted to farming when costs first shot up. But the price of fertiliser quickly skyrocketed and his efforts to grow crops were unsuccessful.
This brave couple say their hearts break when their children ask why there’s nothing to eat.
“The only thing I can do is bless water, give it to them to drink and reassure them that brighter days will come,” says Ayitevi.
Aboni holds onto hope that food prices will one day come down and their suffering will be lessened.
But in the meantime, their local church has stepped into the gap.
In partnership with Compassion, their church is providing the family with lifesaving support, including food packs and financial assistance for their business. Their young daughter has been registered in the Child Sponsorship Program and, for this, the couple say they are grateful to God.
“God preserves our lives and wakes us up to meet the next day,” says Ayitevi. “My prayer and hope is that through this very child, God will change our story.”
Compassion is leading a local-first response to the global food crisis through partnerships with over 8,500 local churches across four continents.
Our church partners are responding in two ways:
You can help ensure children and families in poverty have food to eat during the global food crisis and for the years to come.
In the small Ethiopian town of Dera, Birtukan likes to rise early to prepare her granddaughter’s lunch box for school. She knows that 7-year-old Yeresen needs nutritious food to focus during class and have the energy to play with her friends.
But soaring food prices are choking Birtukan’s budget, and the gap between what she earns and what her money can buy is growing wider each day. Like so many other local families, Birtukan is forced to choose which meal to cut out each day—breakfast, lunch or dinner?
“I don’t want Yeresen to go to school without food while her friends are eating,” says Birtukan. “It’s a difficult choice, but sometimes it’s the only choice.”
Staff and volunteers from the local church grew concerned that Yeresen, and many other children like her, were missing out on school because they didn’t have enough to eat. So they took matters into their own hands. Using funds of their own and through support from Compassion, the local church began providing lunch for every child registered at their centre.
Birtukan and the other caregivers were overwhelmed with gratitude. They still rise early to help prepare food for their families, but now they take turns to cook a nourishing meal for one another’s children to eat at school.
“No child should worry about missing school because they don’t have lunch,” says Project Director Bayush. “These little children deserve to be in school. They deserve to thrive.”