Making our voices heard through the ENOUGH campaign

By Genoveva, aged 13, young leader from Tanzania. 

I am very happy to write this blog to represent many children from Tanzania and the East Africa region, raising our voices to address child hunger and malnutrition. We know that hunger is caused by a lack of food. When a person does not eat enough food over a long time it will cause poor nutrition. So, food should be ENOUGH in terms of the amount but also in terms of quality. 

I am from a region in Tanzania where more than half the children are underdeveloped due to poor nutrition. Many children in my region are not growing properly, are weak and can be easily attacked by diseases. 

Hunger is a real problem and I have witnessed it with my own eyes and ears. Some of my friends told me that they only eat one meal per day. All this made me realise why my region is in the top regions with poor nutrition caused by an unbalanced diet. This also brings many negative consequences: poor school attendance, low focus during study hours, and poor performance in school as a result of hunger. Girls in my region are dropping out of school due to child pregnancy and they start engaging in paid work in order to feed their children. 

I humbly ask the governments and private sector actors to support us in ensuring that children get a balanced diet by educating our families on the importance of this and supporting our parents to produce ENOUGH and different types of food crops to feed their children.  

My hope is that children can get a balanced diet instead of depending on only maize and potatoes which are commonly available in my region. My hope is that our voices through the ENOUGH campaign will be heard, and the pain that children are facing will be addressed and reduced.