Face Up To Hunger

Rwanda Fact File• Size: Rwanda is one of the smallest

countries in Africa and is approximately the same size as Munster.

• Population: 10.4 million.• Capital: Kigali.• Languages: Kinyarwanda, French and

English.• Life expectancy: 51 years.• Poverty ranking: 161st poorest country in

the world.

Did you know??

• For the first time in history one in six of the world’s population goes hungry, in other words 1 billion people.

• Approximately 5 million children die because of hunger every year.

• One child dies every 6 seconds from malnutrition and related causes.

• Malnutrition and hunger-related diseases cause 60% of children’s deaths in the developing world.

Case Study- Triphonie

Domitille is the young girl pictured on the front of this year’s Lenten Trócaire box. Here she is pictured with her mother Triphonie.

Triphonie said ‘Now I can weave and am learning how I can make other improvements through small loans. The social aspect of coming together with others is very important. We learn to become self-reliant and about how to start a business. Now I can help my family, buying food, medicine and clothes’.

Case Study- Speciose

Speciose is 33 years old and is President of COFAVU run by COCOF, a Trócaire supported cooperative of women from rural households. COFAVU supports women in setting up their own small businesses.

Speciose concluded ‘now our socio economic situation is changing slowly. With support from COCOF we are improving our lives and trying to cope with life. We are sending our kids to school’.

(L-R) Speciose with daughter Tatiana (8), sons Florien (8) and Clement (12) and husband Thacien.

For the 2004 Lenten campaign, Trócaire focused on the genocide in Rwanda. Josienne was the young girl who featured on the box that year. She was 13 years old.

Case study- Josienne

Josienne with her mother, Genevieve.

Josienne is now 17 years old.

Your Task Imagine you are Domitille. Write a personal

account, in a word document, of what it is like for your family to live on less than €1.07 per day.

• What did you eat?

• What happens if you are sick?

• How did you feel?

Useful websites.• Visit the Trócaire website where you can download resources including trade,

climate change, poverty and hunger. Log on to http://www.trocaire.org/schoolresources

• Trócaire’s partner GRAIN at www.grain.org• World Food Programme at

http://www.wfp.org/students-and-teachers/hunger-resources• UN Food and Agricultural Organisation at http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/• End Poverty 2015 at http://endpoverty2015.org/goals/end-hunger• Millennium Development Goals at http://www.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml• BBC Rwanda Country Profile at

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1070265.stm• Contact Aoife McTernan at amcternan@trocaire.ie