In the flooded streets of Manila, Philippines

October 15, 2009: World Food Day 2009, which will take place on Friday, October 16, was created by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization to call attention to world hunger. In 2009 more than one billion people are malnourished.

Natural disasters, which wipe out crops and livelihoods, can leave families without the most basic nourishment needed to survive. SOS Children's Villages, a charity that raises children in some 500 Villages in 132 countries, is on the ground to help distribute food to people who have lost everything they own to floods or earthquakes.

Distributing Food to Flood-Affected Families in the Philippines

SOS teams distributed cooked food to Philippines flood victims.

Typhoon Ketsana, which inundated most of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, on September 26, left 280 people dead and half a million families without homes. With seven SOS Children's Villages in the country, including one in Manila, SOS is uniquely placed to offer swift assistance to those in need.

SOS's relief program for victims of Typhoon Ketsana is multi-pronged. SOS mothers, staff, children, and youths have distributed prepared food, clothes, and relief packages to more than 1,000 families forced to take refuge in Manila's Alabang Elementary School. SOS volunteers also helped clean up debris around the school.

SOS-Philippines staff and SOS youths have given out rice, canned goods, pansit (a local noodle dish), and bottled water to 300 families living in a Manila district along the Laguna de Bay that was hit by heavy flooding. Thousands of homes in that area remain submerged.

Special Attention Given to Children

Many families are still in temporary shelters.  Children suffer the most.

SOS Children's Villages specializes in caring for children traumatized by neglect, abuse, displacement, and hunger. Whether through the warm homes that SOS provides for orphaned children, or the schools and clinics it runs, everything the organization does is designed to give children a better life.

SOS staff and youths enclosed puzzle play mats in the relief packages they distributed to Philippino families who lost their homes last month.  These were given to families with infants so the babies can have a safe, comfortable place to sleep.

A little goes such a long way. For a small amount of money, you can bring a loving home, food, and an education to a child in the Philippines who will otherwise have none of these things. Sponsor an SOS child today.