THANK YOU to all our volunteers, donors and partners who act with us! Acting for a hunger-free world is to act for more quality of life! That is the mission of Stop Hunger, which rolls-out a growing number of activities to help those most in need to make a lasting escape from hunger, supporting in particular women who act to eliminate the hunger.
Stop Hunger, 20 years of commitment toward a hunger-free world
For 20 years, Stop Hunger has been committed to fighting hunger in the world, relying on the full ecosystem of Sodexo. From free meals for disadvantaged schoolchildren to support for women who put programs in place to eradicate hunger in the heart of their community, the organization works to help those most in need permanently escape hunger, and build a more just world.
Stop Hunger is an international non-profit organization created in 1996 by Sodexo employees in the United States.
It originated from the fact that for many disadvantaged children in the United States, the school lunch was often their only meal of the day. This raised the question of how to provide them with food outside school hours. A group of Sodexo employees, including Michel Landel, now CEO of Sodexo, decided to distribute meals free of charge to these children during school holidays.
Today, the organization brings together 113,000 volunteers in 44 countries. To date, it has distributed 5.7 million meals and raised US$4.6 million in support of 875 local NGOs.
Stop Hunger and Sodexo, the power of a unique model
Stop Hunger and Sodexo share the same hope of Quality of Life for all, acting together for a hunger-free world. The organization relies on the commitment and strength of Sodexo's ecosystem, which includes 425,000 employees, nearly 430,000 clients,
thousands of shareholders, 1.5 million affiliates and 75 million consumers worldwide. Thanks to Sodexo’s international footprint and its local contribution, Stop Hunger intervenes in multiple countries as closely as possible to those most in need.
Because Sodexo covers all of the operating costs, 100% of the donations made to Stop Hunger go directly to supporting actions, from long-term programs co-constructed with NGO partners to emergency funds providing food for victims of natural disasters.
Stop Hunger, effective solutions
If food aid remains vital to cope with daily hunger and saving lives, Stop Hunger seeks to help those most in need to permanently escape hunger. Activities that go beyond food aid now represent 53% of Stop Hunger's work. Three solutions have been identified as being the most effective:
1. Food self-sufficiency
For those who have little or no resources, eating means either buying food at reduced prices or consuming produce they raise themselves. Stop Hunger supports networks of solidarity grocery stores and encourages the creation of community gardens in France and Latin America, enabling people to grow healthy food for their families. It also supports training in techniques for responsible and sustainable agriculture to grow food for a family’s own consumption or to earn income.
2. Access to training, education and employment
Stop Hunger volunteers organize training courses in market gardening, balanced diets, cooking, food safety, etc. In Romania and Brazil, Stop Hunger also sponsors disadvantaged schoolchildren. In Africa, Asia and South America, the organization brings its financial and technical contributions to the World Food Programme’s school meals program. Through the expertise of Sodexo teams, Stop Hunger strengthens the nutritional impact and quality control of free school meals provided by WFP.
3. Women empowerment
Women are more likely (60%) than men to suffer chronic hunger, but they are most effective in overcoming it: women in developing countries account for 43% of agricultural production and grow 60-80% of the food resources derived from family farming. Together with local and international NGOs, Stop Hunger is committed to enabling women to contribute more to sustainable development while making it a source of empowerment.
Clodine Pincemin, Stop Hunger President, said: "If women had the same access as men to productive resources, they could feed 100 to 150 million additional people. Stop Hunger will finance the co-construction of programs to empower women, particularly in Africa, Latin America, Cambodia, France, India and Romania where projects are ongoing or under study. This initiative is supported through the Women Stop Hunger Award, which recognizes women who have implemented innovative and measurable programs to eliminate hunger in their communities."
A hunger-free world is possible
Today, 1 in 9 people still suffer from hunger, or nearly 795 million people.
Hunger is not inevitable, but the result of internal conflicts, speculation on agricultural goods, the absence and/or lack of access to water, and food waste: 1.3 billion tons of food per year, or 40 tons per second, end up in the trash, between the farm and the table, which is 1/3 of all food produced in the world.
The United Nations has set a goal of eliminating hunger in the world by 2030. Stop Hunger and Sodexo seek to contribute through actions on the ground and with the international community so that the world’s 8.5 billion humans have enough to eat.
