Flock to the Cause
Chicken giant Tyson Foods is helping Rwandan women raise their own chickens as part of the ambitious UN-sponsored Millennium Project to combat world hunger, disease and poverty.
Rwanda is a place that needs help: Nearly half of children there suffer from chronic malnutrition, and two-thirds of its population lives below the poverty line, according to Food for the Hungry.
But you might ask what Tyson, an Arkansas-based company, is doing in the small African nation. Especially since it insists in a press release announcing the project that it has no plans for commercial chicken production in the country.
Tyson's philanthropic efforts, not surprisingly, focus on hunger relief — efforts accomplished mostly by giving away their own products. But on this project they've teamed up with the Millennium Project, led by prominent development economist Jeffrey Sachs.
Sachs visited Tyson headquarters earlier this week, where he told employees that hunger breeds instability — and how ending hunger is in our national-security interest.
"You cannot stabilize a hungry place," he said, "Troops can never do it. We need you, we need the ability to grow food, we need modern technology to be able to solve these problems."
Watch a few minutes of Sachs' speech here.
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Tyson is setting an example
Tyson is setting an example for other large, well-to-do companies by not only providing food to people in Rwanda, but also by teaching people to support their own families by growing chicken. This is a great way to help people who go hungry and live below the poverty line. If more companies were willing to donate their resources to making people more self-sufficient, poverty may very well become less of a problem a bit at a time. Profitable companies who offer to help people improve life and are essential for improving poverty.
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