The annual Broken Bread Poverty Meal allows college students to identify with and intercede on behalf of the hungry.

October 2008

On Oct. 16, World Food Day, about 4,300 college students from some 50 college and university stood alongside the millions of hungry people around the world by participating in the annual Broken Bread Poverty Meal.

Identify and intercede

Sponsored by Acting on AIDS, World Vision’s student advocacy movement, the Broken Bread Poverty Meal allows students to identify with and intercede on behalf of the hungry as they partake in a simple porridge meal while reading true-to-life stories and engaging in discussion, prayer, and advocacy.

Started in 2006 as a creative activism event to raise awareness about the connection between AIDS and hunger, Kristie Urich, World Vision’s Acting on AIDS program manager, says that this event creates synergy between local, regional, and national groups in the fight against global AIDS and poverty.

“It creates an opportunity for reflection, conversation, and response that can be instrumental in touching students’ hearts and influencing a long-term response,” explains Urich.

The link between hunger and AIDS

AIDS and hunger are not isolated issues. Already, AIDS has killed 7 million farmers in Africa. With some nations projected to lose as much as 25 percent of their agricultural labor force, one must wonder who will feed the widows and orphans left behind.

Hunger and food shortages also help drive the spread of HIV. Hunger increases the likelihood that people will adopt risky behavior to survive. In addition, hunger and malnutrition, coupled with the lack of access to antiretroviral drugs, significantly reduce the life expectancy of people living with HIV in developing countries.

About Acting on AIDS

With more than 200 college and university campuses active in the movement, Acting on AIDS is a grassroots movement started and fueled by college students to raise awareness, promote advocacy, and be transformed in response to global AIDS and related issues of injustice.

Individual students as well as campus organizations and ministries take part in creative activism and discipleship efforts to transform hearts on campuses and turn the tide against global AIDS. Broken Bread is one of several creative activism events sponsored by Acting on AIDS each year.