Pakistan: Blue Band & World Food Programme partnership
WFP and Unilever under a three-year partnership are together in the fight against child hunger and Unilever commits itself to provide expertise in nutrition and health as well as financial support.
Tackling poor nutrition
In Pakistan, millions of citizens are suffering from poverty and malnutrition, the majority of them being children and women. The situation has worsened in 2008 with the number of food in secure people rising to 9 million.
World Food Programme (WFP) and Unilever under a three-year partnership are together in the fight against child hunger and Unilever commits itself to provide expertise in nutrition and health as well as financial support. The three-year partnership also supports the achievement of UN MDGs one and two i.e. eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, and achieve universal primary education.
Today in 30 districts of NWFP, Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir, WFP assists 3003 schools with over half a million students getting monthly a take-home ration (edible oil) as well as a daily meal (high energy biscuits).
In 2007, Blue Band during its Ramazan campaign raised about R.s 1.8 million and Unilever employees contributed about half a million rupees to WFP for flood relief operations in Balochistan.
Walk the world
Unilever Pakistan with its partners WFP and TNT organized walks on the 31st of May 2008 at its 3 factories: Walls & Unilever Pakistan Foods Factory in Lahore and the Khanewal Tea Factory. Over 800 participants and employees across the business donated to the WFP through its Meal for A Meal drive. The End Hunger initiative was a week long drive starting from awareness programmes, followed by the walk and culminating with the collection of donations. The total amount collected was then matched by Blue Band.
The walk the world initiative marks not only Unilever’s commitment to the WFP partnership but is also a reflection of its employees passion and dedication to the “End hunger” cause.
Employee payroll programme
As part of Unilever’s commitment, the company has rolled out an “employee payroll programme”.
Its costs approximately Rs. 350 to feed one child for one month. Over 500 Unilever employees have committed to contribute towards this initiative, amounting to over Rs. 2.7 M per year. This amount will help feed over 670 children and 3,500 family members per month under the world Food programme.
Feed 1 more
The number of food insecure rural areas has swelled in the recent past and we have developed this ‘food stamp drive’ in order to counter this predicament.
The concept behind the ‘Feed One More’ campaign is to:
Empower children to make a difference in the world
Educate them about the less fortunate children of our country
Generate within them a sense of responsibility and humanity
However, the essence of the campaign lies in eradicating hunger whilst providing poor children with an opportunity to acquire an education and improve living standards.
Every food stamp at the cost of Rs. 25 represents the value of one meal, so each coupon sold is a meal bought. Our nation’s youth is the engine for change and through this campaign we hope to feed many undernourished school children.
10 students of the local school “ Bay View Academy” were commended for their unprecedented efforts in creating awareness and collecting funds to provide approximately 36,000 meals to WFP supported families and children. The students were awarded certificates honouring them with the title ‘Agent against Hunger’.
The ‘Feed One More’ campaign has been successfully initiated in Karachi and is now expected to also gain momentum in other parts of Pakistan. With the proceeds going to WFP-assisted schools, we are optimistic that it will serve as a stepping stone towards a brighter future for the Pakistani children.
