Count your blessing: Thursday 19 February
By Rev Dr Robin Hill
Fuseini Fatmata, 12, is a little girl with big ambitions. Keen to be a teacher or a nurse, she hopes one day to be able to look after her whole family and put an end to going without food. Photo courtesy of Christian Aid
To be visited by a good friend from a different culture is always a joy, but it can also be a challenge. Once, not so long ago, a Zambian minister came on exchange to Scotland and found himself surrounded by unimaginable wealth: clean, fresh water on tap 24 hours a day; different food types in a well-stocked fridge; calorific treats galore and no shortage of variety.
Constant food supply coupled with profligate food waste is a measure of what our consumer society has become in little more than a generation. How different life remains in Zambia. And how challenging for us to see that our everyday living is not the global norm. Far from it.
For most people in our land, food is a given. Yet for so many people around the world proper nutrition remains a distant dream. Universal access to good food is hampered by inflated dietary expectations, where rich people eat food wastefully with little regard for their neighbours' needs. And often those most at risk are the very ones who are most vulnerable: the very young; the very old.
Everyone, it seems, wants to harvest the benefits of eternal economic growth. Some even expect to receive those benefits as of right. Yet, the truth of the world is rather different. While the few get richer, the many continue to struggle. This poses a question to us in a Scotland which has so, so much: are we prepared to see our standard of living fall so that the life prospects of billions of people the world over can finally be taken seriously?
Christian Aid
Daily Reflection
162 million young children are still suffering from chronic under-nutrition - They are hungry and often ill because they don't get enough vitamins and minerals.
Give 40p for every food group in your fridge.