Countywide : Plight of Children in U.S. Emphasized

Televised images of starving and destitute children in Somalia must not blind Orange County residents to the plight of malnourished and impoverished children here, local UNICEF officials and social workers said Thursday.

“Last month, 27,000 people came to Costa Mesa, right next to Newport Beach, to get a bag of beans or rice or powdered milk or peanut butter, if we were lucky enough to have it at the time,” said Jean Forbath, founder of the Costa Mesa-based Share Our Selves.

Forbath made her comments in Santa Ana, where local officials for the United Nations Children’s Fund released its annual report on the state of the world’s children.

That report states that 4 million children die worldwide each year of preventable causes, including pneumonia, starvation and poor health care. It also states that the cost of preventing those deaths by providing adequate water, health care and education would be $25 billion annually, which is less than Americans now spend on beer.

Diane Lichterman, chairwoman of the Orange County Committee for UNICEF, emphasized that the only remaining obstacle to ending world hunger is not technology or cost,but lack of public and political will.

Lichterman said that for $1.50, a child can be immunized against common diseases and that $1 worth of antibiotics can cure a child of pneumonia, a disease that claims the lives of 3.4 million children a year.

“We need to do something now” about the starvation in Somalia and the looming famine in other parts of the world, Lichterman said. “It’s a pity that we have to see all these bodies (on television). We shouldn’t have to get that far.”

Lindsay Carter, 10, was one of seven students from the Top of the World School in Laguna Beach invited to the conference to offer comments on world hunger.

“I think that every child in this world should be entitled to a loving family, warmth, a clean place to stay, food and shelter and, probably the most important thing of all, a chance to live and become something,” Lindsay said.

Although the problems in Africa are undeniably severe, Forbath said Orange County’s problems of hunger and poverty must not be neglected.

While trying to find aid for poor families with children locally, she said, “we hear little quotes like, ‘Amy shares her shoes with Susie because they only have one pair of shoes and they take turns going to school.’ Or ‘We have no bed, so we’d love to have blankets and sleeping bags so the children can have a place to sleep.’ ”

Forbath added, “We (must) open our eyes to the poverty and suffering in our own community. I have found that it’s a lot simpler to send food to Tijuana rather than to recognize that there’s poverty right here because if you do that, then you have to respond, and it’s very hurtful.”