Every International Food Day, which we celebrate on October 16, we must remember that malnutrition continues to be a problem that affects more than 800 million people; an obscene figure if we take into account that we currently have sufficient technological and economic capacity to end this scourge.
Hunger is a direct consequence of war conflicts - usually instigated and sustained by powers external to the countries that suffer them - climate change and unsustainable development models. These factors are combined with the main one: An unfair distribution of wealth.
Until a few years ago, World Food Day led us to demand development cooperation policies from the opulent societies of the first world to the needs of the third.
Today, however, this day also forces us to think about our country, also in the Canary Islands, also in Lanzarote. As there are already thousands of people in our immediate environment who need the help of public administrations, NGOs and family protection networks to cover something as basic as daily food.
Beyond macroeconomic indicators or financial forecasts, the number of people who use soup kitchens or aid from Spanish institutions confronts us with an unquestionable truth: we are becoming the third world.
The increase in millionaires indicated by statistics, together with the unstoppable loss of purchasing power of the increasingly impoverished and depopulated middle class, defines a new model that is increasingly similar to those developing societies that previously seemed enormously distant to us.
As mayor, I face this new reality every day. More and more residents are coming to the town hall demanding something as basic as food. And as head of the socialist leadership, I welcome the increase in funds allocated to finance school canteens or the initiative of the Ministry of Education of the Government of the Canary Islands to guarantee one meal a day during the holidays to children with fewer resources.
At the same time, it terrifies and outrages me and I fight against the suicidal determination of the right to impose an austerity that is being paid for by the weakest.
Meanwhile, we have to continue supporting with concrete actions the task of institutional and personal solidarity and, above all, that carried out by indispensable groups such as Cáritas or Calor y Café. My most sincere and effusive recognition goes to them.
*María Dolores Corujo, secretary of the PSC-PSOE in Lanzarote.
