A UN-organized global walk has raised more than 500,000 U.S. dollars to feed impoverished schoolchildren, a UN press release said Monday.
Over 250,000 people in 70 countries took to the streets Sunday in the global walk organized by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and its largest corporate partners, TNT and Unilever.
The walk, entitled "End Hunger: Walk the World," featured events in more than 250 locations around the world to raise money for the WFP's school feeding program. In Malawi, more than 50,000 people walked in 13 districts, most of them schoolchildren who received WFP meals.
Over the past five years, the event has raised enough money to feed more than 100,000 schoolchildren for one year.
This year's walk took place just days ahead of a summit on the global food crisis set to begin in Rome on June 3.
"Walk the World delivers a strong message that hungry children in school should not be forgotten, especially in this time of high food prices and hardship," said John Powell, deputy executive director of the WFP.
According to the WFP, nearly 60 million children around the world go to school hungry.
The agency is a major provider of school meals in developing countries. From Afghanistan to Somalia, some 20 million children benefit from WFP school meals at the cost of only 0.25 dollars a day.
Source:Xinhua
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