Since 1989 child poverty in Nova Scotia decreased by less than one percent. One in four kids lives in poverty, for kids younger than 2 years, that is one in three! Let that sink in. And numbers for African Nova Scotian and Mi’kmaw kids are much higher again.
PSA: The right to food protects Canadians from food insecurity and hunger. However, this does not obligate the Canadian government to feed citizens. This panel will examine the practicality of harnessing private sector food supply chains to provide affordable and nutritious food as well as assessing policy mechanisms that can protect Canadians against hunger and malnutrition.
Food banks are a wonderful institution, and in these times of austerity-induced suffering they need our full support. That said, food banks are not very efficient in getting food to hungry families. “We found that most food-insecure households delayed bill payments and sought financial help from friends and family, but only 21.1% used food banks,” the authors of a recent study state.
What all could we do to make Halifax a world class city if we had $20,000,000 to spend? Judy Haiven investigates.
On Monday, November 25, Paul Jenkinson, who recently ended a 30-day hunger strike will, along with the Grace Jollymore Arts Centre, host a public discussion about how the climate crisis will affect food security and what we must do about it, followed by a Q&A about the climate crisis hunger strike with fellow hunger strikers and XR coordinators.
Paul Jenkinson reflects on food security and building community as he engages in a hunger strike to raise awareness of the urgency of climate change.
The trailer for Six Primose, a documentary about the Dartmouth North Community Food Centre and the dramatic impact that access to healthy food, a social network and empowering programs have had on individual lives and the community as a whole. See the entire film this Wednesday January 30, it’s free!
In Ontario yearly health care costs for a food secure person are around $1600. The same costs for a person who experiences severe food insecurity are almost $4000. Almost 4% of Nova Scotia’s households experienced severe food insecurity, meaning that people missed meals, reduced food intake and at the most extreme went day(s) without food. You can’t solve our healthcare crisis while you ignore those numbers. Raise the rates and the minimum wage!
We interview food security expert Dr. Valerie Tarasuk, who will be visiting Nova Scotia later this week. She talks about hunger counts that don’t count hunger, food banks that don’t solve food insecurity, and income thresholds that don’t reflect it. Also, why people who are food insecure get sick so much, even if the illness has nothing to do with diet. And finally, what we should do to fix the problem.
This weekend video actually started as a story published in the Nova Scotia Advocate, written by a mother who wanted to tell how being on welfare affected her and her children, the stigma she faced, and how it can happen to anyone.