Lunch and Learn: How Clean Water Can Help End Hunger
A Lunch & Learn virtual dialecture by ELCA World Hunger’s Dr. Ryan Cumming. Dr. Cumming brings this event to the Grand Canyon Synod and the Southeastern Iowa Synod in conjunction with the synod-wide 40-40-40 Lenten Challenge. Register to receive Zoom link for this Thursday, 3/16/2023 event, at 11am MST/PDT, 12pm MDT.
The number of people who are hungry or at risk of famine has skyrocketed in the last two years. Yet we know that solving this crisis will take more than food. Join us to learn how access to clean, safe water is an essential step toward the promise of a future when we will hunger – and thirst – no more.
As of 2020, 2 billion people around the world lacked access to safely managed drinking water services. This puts them at higher risk of running out of water or of contracting waterborne illnesses.
Water is life: we cannot hope to end hunger if we do not improve access to safe, sufficient water for consumption, hygiene, and agriculture.
Water scarcity due to a multi-year drought in the Horn of Africa is currently driving parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia into famine or famine-like conditions, with millions of people at risk of death without sustained assistance.
In the US, lack of access to clean, safe, sufficient water is threatening lives and livelihoods across the country, from rural farming communities struggling with drought to urban communities facing contamination of water supplies. This is a problem we all face now – or will face soon.
Responding to the threat of drought or water scarcity means providing more than humanitarian assistance; it will require changing how we farm and changing the policies that shape how we access and use land and water.
Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D., is the interim director of education and networks for ELCA World Hunger. In this role, he works with a fantastic team to develop educational resources and programs to help the church learn about our faithful response to hunger and poverty, to draw leaders together from across the church, and to accompany social ministry organizations affiliated with the ELCA. He is a teacher and researcher in the area of ethics, theology, and religious studies, and he lives with his family in Chelsea, Michigan.
