World Food Day is Almost Here! Meet Peter, a Food Hero in South Sudan
World Food Day is one of the United Nations’ most recognized holidays, as it is an opportunity to bring awareness to food security and the importance of achieving Sustainable Development Goal #2 of Zero Hunger. This year’s theme, “Grow, Nourish & Sustain Together,” calls for global solidarity to empower those at risk around the world. As a way to celebrate this important day, we would like to highlight one of our Food Heroes, Peter Lomago.
Food Heroes are those who, despite their circumstance, do everything in their power to help elevate communities and eradicate hunger. Peter is the indigenous director at Lift Up the Vulnerable’s partner Hope For South Sudan. Growing up in a warzone, Peter became interested early on in pursuing something greater than himself. Due to the collapse of the educational infrastructure, Peter left his village at nine years old. He walked alone for days without food to the refugee camps in Uganda in the pursuit of a better life with educational opportunities. Living as a refugee, Peter was focused on completing elementary and high school in order to be part of growing a solution back home. When he returned to South Sudan as an adult, he would come to serve as an innovative and compassionate leader with Hope for South Sudan. He aided in the prevention of human trafficking as well as protecting, educating and empowering children in his community.
Today, Peter plays a pivotal role in the Empowering Lives through Nutrition-Smart Agriculture initiative with Rise Against Hunger and Lift Up the Vulnerable. With his leadership, the five-year initiative will build capacity in crop production for consumption and income generation; increase dietary diversity and nutrition; and build a first-of-its-kind community farm school to equip and support more vulnerable people. Grassroots economic development is a game-changer for transitioning communities. Investing in children and women to be independent and innovative is a key requirement to help transform communities.
Peter shared, “I am filled with great awe and amazement because of the timely connection with Rise Against Hunger. With the support from Rise Against Hunger, our activities — and especially the farm work — is the first of its kind in the region. Before, it was unthinkable that we can produce our own food from our own soil. The knowledge for conservation agriculture, provision of nutritious meals and financial support from Rise Against Hunger has boosted our morale. This is what it means to lift someone and empower a community and a country to understand and replicate compassionate love.”
World Food Day began as a way to help bring awareness to the issue of hunger across the world, and it continues to be a day full of hope for the future. Now more than ever, we must come together to help families recover from the COVID-19 crisis, and develop sustainable solutions to ensure communities everywhere have access to nutritious food. To celebrate World Food Day, Rise Against Hunger is hosting a virtual event, which is free to attend!
Please join us for our World Food Day event, “Hour of Impact” to hear impact updates from our CEO and founder, watch as volunteers nationwide come together to package nutritious meals for distribution worldwide, and support our continued COVID-19 relief efforts.