 |
 |
|
|
| What might happen if a whole country decided to ensure the right to food for everyone? We will know the answer in the next few years, thanks to Fome Zero, Brazil's national hunger campaign that was started in 2003. That's when Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, better known as "Lula" became President of South America's largest nation. At his inauguration Lula declared that his number one priority was to end hunger in his country - a reality for 20% of Brazilians, and that he wished to have the success or failure of his administration judged by whether or not he met that goal. |
| The national campaign is modeled in large part by a hugely successful metropolitan effort launched in 1993 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil's third-largest city. Led by a social worker named Adriana Aranha, the effort has cut malnutrition in Belo by an estimated 80% so far. And now, in an effort to mobilize the entire country, government-funded billboards and TV commercials continually take the Zero Hunger message to all Brazilian people. |
| The Fome Zero program of Belo Horizonte is a comprehensive program involving food programs in all schools and child care centers, subsidized "popular restaurants," "popular basket" buses that bring inexpensive staples into Belo's poorest neighborhoods, farmers' markets with controlled prices, nutrition education classes, organic markets and support for sustainable, local food production, gardens in schools and a host of other ideas. |
| In SILENT KILLER, viewers meet the charismatic Aranha and see how Belo's program works. Adriana Aranha is now a leader in Brazil's national program. |
| You can see a video clip and read an interview with Adriana Aranha on our Web Site. More information about the Fome Zero campaign can be found at:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
