Children are the future of the world--the values and habits taught to them not only reflect their future, but also our future for the overall well-being of the world. As leaders with the New Mexico Oxfam Action Corps, we recently had the pleasure of hosting a hunger banquet in Ms. Kali Beckman’s fifth grade class at Alvarado Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Ms. Beckman attended our World Food Day dinner in October and felt an Oxfam Hunger Banquet would be a perfect activity to enhance their poverty and justice unit. Our job was simplified by the fact that the students were already well-versed on Oxfam when we arrived. 
After introductions we explained to the class that they represented the entire world. (One young man made us laugh when he announced he wanted to be Asia.) We instructed students to count off and sit or stand to practice fractions and show statistics in a meaningful way. For the first one, students counted off one through seven and all the sixes sat down to show how one in every seven people go to bed hungry. Next students visualized how 1 in 3 women can't read or write, 1 in 6 people don't have access to clean drinking water, and 1 in 2 people live on less than 2 US dollars a day.
When we started the Hunger Banquet the excitement was palpable. The students were thrilled to portray children from all over the world. Each student received their card at random and were asked to read it and introduce themselves to a neighbor.
We began the simulation by explaining what it looks like to live in each class, and how the majority of the people were on the floor. We went around asking how everyone felt and whether the distribution was fair. We then asked one student from the middle class to move to the lower class because his family's farm lost their crops due to drought and scorching temperatures. He looked worried, and the remaining middle class students expressed their fear of losing their status as well. This brought up the reality of how vulnerable the middle class can be and helped prompt the discussion of issues that negatively impact people such as medical bills, natural disasters, or unemployment.
Next two children from the lower class moved up to middle class because they earned scholarships for working hard at home and getting good grades in school. They were delighted for the opportunity to move up, and the welcomed with smiles into the middle class. We pointed out that education is an extremely powerful tool to empowerment and moving up in income level and stability.At that point, we distributed food. The middle class were servers who first gave the upper class bags with more mandarins, candy, and pretzels than they could possibly eat. Then they served themselves medium sized snack bags, and finally gave the low income group bags with one pretzel each.
Once they were eating their food we demonstrated food waste by asking the upper and middle class to throw some of their food into a bucket that represented a trash can. Everyone engaged in conversation about what wasting food means and the global impact. Some students admitted they were picky and threw away food at home, another felt indignant enough to exclaim that it wasn't fair the upper income group threw away food while they only received one pretzel. However, the discussion really heated up when we asked the students to decide how the "wasted" food in the bucket should be redistributed. Before students related to the characters they played and expressed their feelings, but everyone became much more invested in the discussion when they realized they were deciding their fate.
The arguments and suggestions mirrored those adults and politicians are proposing all over the world. After a lengthy discussion, the class agreed that the lower income students would be allowed to take food first followed by the middle class. The upper income level were not allowed to take more food, and some of the middle class decided to donate food to the lower class.
Last, they broke into groups and worked on projects to improve their school or neighborhood. We told the class how it was wonderful watching them problem-solve and explained the basics of organizing. We made a point that today they demonstrated what Oxfam's work is all about, especially the importance of asking people to discuss and decide what they want and how to get there, rather than imposing beliefs and solutions on others.
The day closed with everyone talking about what they will remember most. One boy was impressed that Oxfam teaches people about organizing and how to overcome the injustice of poverty. One of the girls said she will never forget that one in three women will never have the opportunity to attend school.
What I will never forget is the insight and awareness of Ms. Beckman's class, and what it really means that people all over the world stand on common ground.
Thank you to Ms. Kali Beckman, her wonderful fifth grade class, and to Brook Sinclair and the San Francisco Oxfam Action Corps for letting us adapt and pilot their classroom Hunger Banquet materials.
Thank you to Ms. Kali Beckman, her wonderful fifth grade class, and to Brook Sinclair and the San Francisco Oxfam Action Corps for letting us adapt and pilot their classroom Hunger Banquet materials.
