While there might be plenty of food in the refrigerators and cupboards of most Yorkton families, that's not the case in many other countries around the world. Representatives from the "Free the Children" organization were in Yorkton recently, talking to local schools about the importance of food security in the third world, and how they can get involved.
"Free The Children's mission is to create a world where all young people are free to achieve their fullest potential as agents of change. The organization was founded by Craig Kielburger in 1995 when he gathered 11 school friends to begin fighting child labour. He was 12. That morning, Craig flipped through the Toronto Star in search of the comics, he was struck by a story. A raw, but courageous story of a boy his age named Iqbal. Iqbal Masih was born in South Asia and sold into slavery at the age of four. In his short life, he had spent six years chained to a carpet-weaving loom. Iqbal captured the world's attention by speaking out for children's rights... What Craig learned from Iqbal's story was that the bravest voice can live in the smallest body. Craig had to do something." And so Free the Children was Born.
Tania Cheng and Michael Lorsch (recently in Yorkton) with Free the Children have been travelling across the country to talk about food security.
The pair spoke to students in the city's schools about the experiences that caused them to be aware of food security, why it is a major problem around the world, and how the students can start helping now, even at a young age.
The initiative is a new one for the charity, something they describe as the fifth pillar for helping people break the cycle of poverty.
"When we started on international development, we were focused on a number of different aspects. We started on school building, water projects, healthcare projects and alternative income projects. But what we realized was that at the end of the day if people are hungry, people can't learn properly, and none of these projects are going to work. We realized that food insecurity is one of the biggest barriers that prevent breaking the cycle of poverty," Cheng says.
Free the Children focuses on the difference young people can make and Lorsch says that it's proof that young people like the students in Yorkton can make a major difference.
"They have this shameless idealism about them. They are not jaded yet, they don't have this feeling about the world that it can't be changed. That is where change comes from, change always comes from a spark that comes from young people."
When it comes to Yorkton schools, Lorsch says that the area has embraced the projects Free the Children is talking about and local students have the "shameless idealism" that helps raise money and awareness for the cause.
"Yorkdale this year raised forty bags of pennies, which provides a thousand dollars for clean water projects around the world. It's an incredible, almost astonishing thing that they did that within one week. That's proof to Tania and I that this is a cause that speaks to young people."
