“The key message here is sharing,” said Dinesh Suna, WCC programme executive for Land, Water, and Food, who co-moderated the event with Craig Stewart of World Vision. “When you share food, food grows, and it feeds hungry mouths.” That act of sharing is what the campaign’s painting depicts. The image that gives the campaign its name, a work by Harold Segura, World Vision’s regional director of Faith & Development for Latin America and the Caribbean, shows loaves and fish circling an open hand. Opening the webinar, Jamie Thomas of Bread for the World, USA read the image alongside Matthew 14:13–21. “What seems insufficient at first becomes enough because it’s no longer mine or yours, but ours,” Thomas said. “That is kinship. Not charity, but solidarity. Not transaction, but relationship.” The scale of the need that reflection addresses came next. Musamba Mubanga-Mtonga of Caritas Internationalis, presenting findings from the Global Report on Food Crises 2026, noted that famine has been confirmed in Gaza and Sudan. “These are not merely statistics,” she said. “Behind every number is a person, a family, and a community struggling to survive and maintain dignity.” Among the drivers behind those numbers is climate change. For Athena Peralta, director of the WCC Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development, the hunger crisis belongs at the heart of the Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action (2025–2034). “Caring for creation and ensuring that all people have access to sufficient and nutritious food . . . these are not separate commitments, but they are all part of the same commitment to justice,” she said. The campaign offers congregations a way to act on that commitment. What makes it distinctive, said Mirko Tedesqui of World Vision International, is that churches themselves identify vulnerable families in their own neighbourhoods – “a mobilization of the community, by the community, and for the community.” It was piloted in El Salvador in 2024 and implemented across 10 Latin American countries in 2025. It runs through 2028 and reaches 13 countries this year across Latin America, Africa, and Asia, with the help of the Prayer and Action Against Hunger Coalition. While the campaign works church by church, the open letter addresses governments. Cosigned by the highest leadership of the three organizations and published on 4 June, it was read in three parts by representatives of each. Participants were invited to carry the campaign toward World Food Day on 16 October and the 54th session of the Committee on World Food Security in Rome, later this year. “Give your loaves and fish” campaign landing page — action hub for congregations joining the campaign Open letter to address hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition WCC, Caritas, World Vision issue open letter against hunger (News Release, 4 June 2026) Global Report on Food Crises 2026 Ecumenical Decade of Climate Justice Action |
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