World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

Haiti's government and its foreign relief partners plan to start "decompressing" earthquake-stricken Port-au-Prince by clearing rubble to allow displaced families to return home or be temporarily resettled, Haitian and U.N. officials said on Tuesday.(..) "Colleagues who have been working for 25 years in this business, who have done Darfur, the earthquake in Pakistan, say they have never seen anything like this," said Myrta Kaulard, the U.N. World Food Program's country director for Haiti, who added that food distribution for quake victims was being maintained.

The World Food Program and other United Nations aid agencies are scaling up their humanitarian operations for millions of Haitians affected by the earthquake (..) And, spokeswoman, Emilia Cassela, says a special rice distribution program started a few weeks ago is reaching many more people. "The total number of people to have received rice rations in the scale up that we have been doing this month is 2.7 million people in Port-au-Prince," she said.

A family tradition got a big boost of support last week in an innovative way. BOOK IT!, a Pizza Hut sponsored reading program, teamed up with actor and children's author John Lithgow once again for a 3rd installment of America's Biggest Bedtime Story, the largest online bedtime story event for children, parents and teachers. For this year's event, which took place on Feb. 18, Lithgow read from his book Carnival of Animals. (..) BOOK IT! pledged to donate 50,000 meals to Haiti relief through the United Nations World Food Program if the number of participants beat last year's numbers.

Images of destruction, suffering, loss and chaos in Haiti have filled the news over the past few weeks. (..) In the logistics domain, WFP as the Logistics Cluster leader has encountered, in the words of Mr. Holmes himself, a "daunting logistical challenge."

Before the calamitous earthquake, Haiti was in the news for another tremor: the global food crisis of 2008. Shortages of rice and the resulting high prices had poor Haitians foraging through dumps and eating concoctions called “mud pies,” mixtures of grain and dirt.

The airport in Port-au-Prince opened up to commercial airline traffic for the first time Friday since last month's earthquake, marking a turning point in the country’s ability to begin to stand on its own. (..) The military has helped distribute about 2.4 million meals. On Thursday alone, the military helped provide 18,000 families with World Food Program aid, the official said.

The three UN food agencies — FAO, the World Food Program and International Fund for Agriculture Development — set up a joint task force on Haiti’s food security, focusing on immediate needs but also on long-term rural development.

A few days before we left Haiti a photographer we knew managed to hitch a ride on an aid flight returning from Port-au-Prince to Miami. (..) “Things can change very quickly out there,” a UN official warned before a World Food Programme handout. “If it starts to get heated get the hell out of here.” The mission was to distribute rice but it felt as though we were going to war.

A month after the catastrophic earthquake that flattened much of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and according to the government killed perhaps 230,000 people, there has been some fragile progress. Hospitals are working, though not before thousands of survivors died of their injuries. The World Food Programme says that it has handed out a two-week supply of rice to 2.5m people in the capital and nearby areas.

Emergency food supplies are running out for more than 100,000 refugees from a conflict in northern Democratic Republic of Congo, according to local World Food Programme workers. (..) "The food depots are empty...(We have) almost 60 tonnes for a monthly need of 1,800-1,900 tonnes per month," said Emmanuel Twagirumukiza, World Food Programme officer in the town of Impfondo, one of two main refugee centres.