tergat on hunger

Via S., NYC Marathon winner Paul Tergat in the Christian Science Monitor:

I know what real hunger pangs feel like. As a child, often the only meal I got was the bowl of porridge served at my school thanks to the UN World Food Program (WFP). I was also one of the fortunate ones. Because of those school lunches, I was able to grow up strong and healthy. Millions of my countrymen and women are not so fortunate.

As human beings, every time we see a hungry person, we are gripped by shame and an urgent desire to help. Yet for reasons I don’t fully understand, hunger seems to exist in a ghetto — present but unseen.

We only have to look at hunger crises in countries like Sudan, Ethiopia, Niger, and Malawi to understand the urgency of the need. Globally, it’s estimated there are 300 million children who run the highest risk of seeing their lives either cut short, or ruined because malnutrition robbed them of normal physical and mental development.

I used to be one of the hungry. Had a food program not been available to me and my schoolmates, I probably wouldn’t be writing this, much less could I have set the world record at the 2003 Berlin Marathon or had the chance to once again participate in this year’s New York City Marathon.