How Can We Help?

Throughout the fall semester, as we sat 8000 miles away in the confines of MIT and attempted to create a constructive solution to world hunger, we felt detached and distanced from the problems occurring here in India. As we toiled through the early hours of the morning to finish our website on time or to perfect our presentation, we often wondered what would be the impact of our project, and questioned "how can we truly help to solve global food insecurity?"

While our solution did not miraculously cure undernourishment throughout the world, it did force us to think realistically and seriously about global food security, a problem I originally possessed little knowledge about.

Before we headed out to do fieldwork this afternoon, Bhushana Karandikar, an expert on food security in India, spoke to us about the challenges facing poor farmers and the complexity of India's hunger issue. After her presentation, many of the Terrascopers were curious as to how we, as American college students, can help with the food security problem in India. Karandikar responded with a simple, yet quite poignant statement that "New perspectives always add to the knowledge." Our project in the fall definitely equipped us with the tools to create our own perspectives; perspectives informed and cultivated enough to have the power to facilitate change in the future.

Karandikar also identified some of the particular factors hindering India's progress in the realm of food security. It was exciting to hear her mention some of the key issues we addressed in our solution, such as distribution problems, education, and ensuring the hungry have access not simply to food, but to the proper nutrition. However, as someone who has dealt with the problem first hand, she knows the realities of the situation, the limits they must deal with and the priorities they must address. Sitting 8000 miles away, we could only attempt to postulate some of the problems that may arise within the context of our solution, relying heavily on statistics and scholarly research to do so. The reality is, however, one must experience firsthand the issue in order to truly appreciate its complexity.

So how can we help? First and foremost, we must voice our perspectives and inform others of importance of the issue of food security. We did this effectively in our presentation but we must continue to do, using our experiences here in India to allow us to have an even deeper understanding of the realities food insecurity and the most pressing problems facing Indian farmers. As Dr. Paul Farmer said of his work with AIDS and TB in Haiti, "My big struggle is how people can erase, not remember," we should do our best to capture, to not "erase," and fully digest our experience here in India, so that we can pass what we learn onto others and truly "add to the knowledge."