Parade of hunger in Brussels: FIAN Belgium fight for the right to access healthy food
Citizens and organizations for the eradication of poverty and their allies gathered in a ‘Parade of Hunger’ in the streets of Anderlecht on 17 October, World Day of Resisting Poverty. Their goal? Claiming together the right to access to healthy food. In a context where more and more people in Belgium are suffering, we want to draw attention to the need for a structural response to a reality that is only getting worse.
A parade, floats spanned by large empty refrigerators and musicians. It is in a friendly atmosphere that the demonstrators come together to draw attention to a reality: “Today more people are calling on food aid in Belgium, and farmers are making efforts to pay a fair and rewarding price.” to get for their work.
The reckoning is increasing on both sides of the food system. The lack of political action is alarming,” said Brigitte Grisar, project manager at the Federation of Social Services in Wallonia and Brussels (FDSS).
This mobilization is organized on the occasion of the International Day against Poverty and the tenth anniversary of the non-profit organization Cultureghem. Brigitte Grisar of the FDSS.
More than 600,000 people in Belgium will need food aid in 2021 and more than 10% of the population will already be food insecure by the spring of 2020. irregular crises pile up. After Covid, energy prices and rents further erode the food budget of households.
For Cultureghem, a non-profit organization that works locally to improve access to food in the working-class neighbourhood, this mobilization is an opportunity to question the traditional political response of food aid.
“Even if we share recuperated fruit and vegetables on a weekly basis, it will not solve the problem. Food aid does not solve poverty, it only manages, and then in undignified conditions!
The families that use food aid must bare their souls. They have to because they are unable to handle the waste products of the agro-industrial system. And it is precisely this system that crushes the farmers, that causes the overproduction of junk food, that damages our health and that leads to excessive food waste”, says Yannick Roels, director of the non-profit organization Cultureghem.
For the organizers it is inconceivable that food aid is provided as a structural solution. On the contrary, according to them, quality food should be regarded as a basic right for everyone and political measures should be taken to achieve effective accessibility:
Increase in social minimum benefits, revaluation of the lowest wages, new elements of social security specific to food, fair remuneration of farmers developing quality food, mobilization of public institutions such as CPAS, collective eateries, etc.
Photos of the action on October 17