US Ambassador Springs Surprise Hunger Banquet on Diplomat Guests

Posted: 17 December 2004

Oxfam tradition educates guests about hunger

A United States ambassador taught some diplomats a lesson this Thanksgiving, when he transformed his typical feast into a learning opportunity torn from the pages of Oxfam America’s famous Hunger Banquet.

Tony Hall, the US Ambassador to the UN anti-hunger agencies in Rome, invited colleagues to his Caracalla house the night before Thanksgiving, careful to keep quiet his plans to publicize the plight of the more than 840 million people around the world who suffer from chronic hunger.

But the guests got their first clue just outside the ambassador’s home. There, they were asked to draw a card from a basket that would assign them to one of three categories of wealth based on World Development Report statistics.

The meal, like the Oxfam Hunger Banquet it was based on, set up a situation based on chance. Some diplomats were lucky. They represented the high-income bracket and ate gourmet meals.

Others ate rice and beans.

Most surprised were the diplomats who were handed a small portion of rice and asked to eat outside in a garden tent.

A leaflet informed them their meal didn’t give them the "minimum calories you require" just like the 60 percent of the world’s population that struggles with the same problem.

"I was thrilled that diplomats and journalists got a small taste of the realities of global hunger and poverty. Oxfam's hunger banquet is a great tool to raise awareness about these issues,” Hall said in a statement.

Three times nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, Ambassador Hall is a former US representative from Ohio and a leading advocate for the world’s hungry.

Just before Thanksgiving, he spent three days in Sudan documenting the problems with security, violence and access to food and water.

Hall had two sources of inspiration for his Oxfam Hunger Banquet. As a congressman, he attended a Washington, DC version. And his spokesman, Max Finberg, had participated in a Hunger Banquet as a student at Tufts University, just a few miles from Oxfam America’s Boston headquarters.

Hall invited about 70 diplomats, all associated with agriculture programs, to the dinner. He wanted to remind them of the reality some people live everyday.

Finberg, Hall’s spokesman, said most of the guests took the exercise in stride. But there were some "grumblings."

"The reality is if you're an ambassador, maybe you’ve experienced hunger, but it was a long time ago," Finberg said.

Hall’s Thanksgiving event was one of more than 400 Oxfam Hunger Banquets held between September and December of this year.

The Oxfam Hunger Banquet is a dramatization of the inequitable distribution of food and resources in today’s world.

It is the most popular event of the Fast for a World Harvest.

“On an almost daily basis, we encounter someone whose introduction to Oxfam was through the Fast for the World Harvest and, in particular, the Oxfam Hunger Banquet,” said Nancy Delaney, Fast and Outreach Manager at Oxfam America. "It’s something that we are all extraordinarily proud of. We’re thrilled that Ambassador Hall used this inspiring tool to convey his concerns about world hunger and poverty."

For more than 30 years, the Fast has brought together students, teachers, community groups, faith congregations, and others to learn about world hunger, increase their awareness of global poverty, and raise money for Oxfam.