Rachel Blais, executive director of the Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre, attended the Walrus talk on the Global Hunger Crisis in Ottawa on Oct. 18.
The event centered around the subject of the increasing hunger around the world, as organizations and country representatives from Canada, Ethiopia, Latin America and the Caribbean brought to light the issues their population were facing.
Although the global world hunger declined steadily for 50 years, the table turned in 2015.
According to a United Nations report, this is due to rising prices, supply chain issues, war, and frequent climate disasters; “Last year, between 702 million and 828 million went hungry,” states the report.
Hunger now affects 1 out of 10 people worldwide, a reality Nunavimmiut are far too familiar with.
The Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre in Iqaluit is deserving to more and more people every month. In the last year, the demand for meals increased by about 12 per cent every single month, explains the director of the Food Centre.
“This time last year, we were serving about 100 to 150 meals per day to the community. Right now we’re actually seeing numbers between 350 to 400,” said Blais.
The director explains the effects of inflation on their ability to respond to the increasing demand is two-fold; “Not only are we seeing an increase in demand, but the food costs for that program is also increasing substantially every single month,” said Blais.