Our NGO, EVERGREEN:

With our NGO we aim to help homeless people and families that don’t have enough money to feed themselves in a very inexpensive and healthy way in Poland. Our objective is to reduce hunger and malnurition in the country.

 

Associating with Food Banks, we plan on doing or own campaigns each 3 months in supermarkets and ask people to donate food.

The food we collect will be given to the Food Bank. From there, things like cookies and cereal will be given to families in need, like usual, but other things, like rice and pasta and even vegetables and fruits, if we are able to collect them, will be directed to our “restaurants”.

Those “restaurants” will be a way of feeding the people who need, like we said before. The price of each healthy meal will be only 0.50€ (2.09 Polish Zlotys), cheap enough, and that money will be given to the helping Food Banks to buy more food to provide our “restaurants” and other people and to give a minor help in financing anything we can do to improve our organisation.

We plan on starting the “restaurants” in the capital of the country first, but then expand to more cities.

Like this, we can help hungry people and families, but also reduce malnutrition, because people will be attracted by the low prices and have a healthy meal, instead of going to a fast food restaurant, something that is more expansive and nowhere near as healthy.

 

 

The Polish Situation:

The exact number of homeless people living in Poland is unknown. Researchers estimate the number of homeless Poles to be in the range of 30 000 to 200 000 homeless people.

Data contained in report recently released by the Polish Central Statistical Office reveal severely deteriorating living conditions for the country’s working population. The report exposes the existence of more than half a million children who suffer from hunger and severe malnutrition.

According to the report, “Living Conditions of Families in Poland”, 1.4 million of the country’s 8.9 million dependent children and young people, up to the age of 24, live in poverty. In a telling sign that conditions for Polish children are actually worsening, the report reveals that one in three Polish children are now born into poverty.

About 35 percent of juveniles age 0-17 rely on some form of government assistance. Nearly 600,000 children lack dental care, and 530,000 have no access to any medical services whatsoever.

The report further reveals that about 3 percent of those households with one or more children do not receive enough food because their parents lack funds to provide either meat, poultry, fish or a vegetarian substitute in their meals at least every other day. Many parents also cannot provide their children with fresh fruit and vegetables a few times each week.

According to the report from a research considering malnutrition in Poland conducted by international MillwardBrown company, 120 000 Polish children go to school hungry and for more than 70 000 the only meal during the day is a founded dinner in the school canteen. Estimates of Polish Humanitarian Action are even more shattering. 

According to data nearly 160 000 Polish children do not get any help and suffer from malnutrition. 

According to a research carried by SMG KRC nearly every third child at the age of 7-15 needs help considering lack of sufficient nourishment. Only in Warsaw over 23 000 children suffer from starvation.

According to GUS report the number of people living on the border of minimum of existence is growing. In 2009 year 2,2 million people lived in conditions of extreme poverty.

Statistics:

• Nearly 120 000 children come to school hungry – not having enough energy to function properly.

• More than 170 000 children suffer from malnutrition, which consequences in improper growth and development

• More than 260 000 children start a day without breakfast, so they lack the most important meal of a day.

• Every fifth child is nourished improperly, which means they do not receive essential nutritious components.

• More than 70 000 children eat only what they get at school, which means that their home does not supply them with basic food. Programs of delivering meals to schools are their only chance for a proper meal. For many Polish children dinner at school is their only meal. Some of the children have the meals founded by social assistance. But not all hungry children can get such help. To obtain such assistance from the country they have to meet specific criteria, which are sometimes so rigidly established that many children are left hungry.

• More than 10% of Polish pupils are above social or other institution help. More than a half of all schools declare that they have more than 20 such children (there are approximately 26 kids waiting for a meal in every school).

 

This problem is especially serious in poor villages, where the unemployment ratio and the degree of social helplessness are very high. 

Children under 15 year-old are especially exposed to poverty. They do not have the choice considering the family they grow up in. Most of them live in families which are at the edge of poverty, unemployed, single-parent or in families with pathological problems.

 

 

Depth of Hunger:

Depth of hunger indicates how much food-deprived people fall short of minimum food needs in terms of dietary energy. The food deficit, in kilocalories per person per day, is measured by comparing the average amount of dietary energy that undernourished people get from the foods they eat with the minimum amount of dietary energy they need to maintain body weight and undertake light activity. The depth of hunger is low when it is less than 200 kilocalories per person per day, and high when it is higher than 300 kilocalories per person per day.

Depth of Hunger in Poland is 120 kilocalories.

 

 

In Poland:

• Death Rate per 100 000 by Malnutrition: 0.3

• Population below the Poverty Line: 10.6

• Percentage of Unemployed: 9.7%