Kean University hosts hunger event

Kean University recently hosted the event, “Hunger and Conflict: 60 Minutes Goes to Darfur” in the North Avenue Academic Building auditorium. Founder of the “Enough Project” John Prendergast and “60 Minutes” producer Nicole Young were on stage to discuss and answer questions. The main topic of discussion was the problem of hunger in Sudan.

One of the questions Young was asked was what she tries to leave behind for those in need.

“What I try and leave behind mostly is the promise that I’m going to do right by them,” Young said. “By making sure that the story is the most honorable one that I can tell on their behalf.”

Visiting a malnutrition center specifically for children one day, she described that every single bed was taken and that it was overwhelming to see so many children in such dire situations.

She went on to discuss a malnourished child she had met at the center named Josephine. A child she described as, “literally not having the energy to hold her body up.”

“When I go out there, I need to leave them some sort of hope and some sort of assurance that I have now taken on the responsibility to tell the story of her daughter in the most respectful way,” Young said.

When the floor was later opened up for questions, one student asked what the psychological consequences of experiencing long term hunger are.

“If the brain is not getting enough nutrition, it is impacted for a lifetime, the PTSD lasts a lifetime,” Prendergast said.

He also described things besides hunger that impact children’s lives in the displaced country. Money being a huge factor, Prendergast brought up family trauma, parents leaving their families in an attempt to earn money, and the United Nations not having enough money to truly support these countries in need.

“Unless those neighbors are called on what they are doing and exposed, then often they gain more from instability and lack of peace than they do from resolving the war,” Prendergast said. “Wherever they are making money off this stuff, they are all using the U.S. dollar which the treasury department has jurisdiction over and can freeze or seize your assets and can block the transaction.

We are accumulating the evidence on particular war criminals and their international collaborators by collecting that evidence and turning it in. Governments and banks are starting to take action.”