Above: Taylor Unoki at the White House, March 2023. When friends and family from my hometown heard I was headed to Ohio, I got a mixture of the same reactions: eyes widened, mouths gaping, screams of excitement, or all of … Read more
A Right to Live: Connecting with Lived Experience in Boston and Washington
Above: Akeisha Latch with About Fresh colleagues and a harvest of greens in Boston, Massachusetts, January 2023. “Everybody’s got a right to live”- a bolded message that I came across one afternoon while working in the MLK Jr. Memorial Library … Read more
Announcing the 30th Class of Emerson National Hunger Fellows
The Hunger Center marks a 30th anniversary milestone by announcing the members of the next class of Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellows. These 15 passionate leaders will spend the next year supporting anti-hunger and anti-poverty work at the local and … Read more
Cultivating a Multi-pronged Perspective of Opportunities and Challenges of the Emergency Food Assistance Program
Above: Bea Dresser and Clara Pitt at the Feeding America Office in Washington, D.C., February 2023 Prior to my policy placement, I had never heard of the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), let alone read its codified regulations in the … Read more
Who Stays Behind? Understanding the Implications of Male Labor Migration on Women-Headed Households in Western Nepal
Above: Jima Community Meeting: Lexi (Research & Learning Specialist), Nilanjana (MEL Assistant), and Neetu (CARM Officer) meet with the Jima community during the learning agenda scoping mission in Mugu. 📸: Lexi Kirton On one of my most recent trips to … Read more
Humans are Complex: Why Our Approaches to Nutrition Behavior Change Must be Too
Above: A local market in Mondulkiri Province, Cambodia. 📸: Bailey Adams There is a tendency amongst medical professionals, nutritionists, and development practitioners to believe human behavior is rational and grounded in logic. We think that if people are given the … Read more
Answers to Questions We Don’t Know Exist: “Localization” and Local Knowledge in Guinea
Above: A 4×4 navigates a difficult patch of muddy road. The quality of roads, and challenges of transportation, can be explained to distant staff in a meeting or report; but that explanation might mean relatively little compared to actually navigating … Read more
Join Us for The State of U.S. Hunger 2023
A briefing featuring field work presentations from the 29th Class of Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellows, will be held online on Wednesday, February 15, 2023 from 10:00 a.m EST to 3:00 p.m EST. This is a great opportunity to learn … Read more
Investigating the Enabling Environment of Food Security in Ethiopia
Above: Natalie Volin, 11th Class Leland Fellow. Over the past year at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), I have worked on the evaluation and learning activities of the Strengthen Productive Safety Net Program Institutions and Resilience Development Food Security Activity, … Read more
The Right to Seed: Food Sovereignty and Indigenous Autonomy
A parent carrying their infant inspects their machamba (farm) in Chemba district, Mozambique. 📸: Onyịnye Alheri, placed with the UN World Food Programme in Mozambique. Seeds are life. For as long as humans have cultivated crops, we have freely saved, stored, … Read more
Finding the Community Connection: Breakfast After the Bell in Massachusetts
Above: Nathan Garcia, 28th Class Emerson Fellow. Sometimes a problem can feel so large that it’s hard to know how to start solving it. We learn that millions of people across the United States are food insecure, that poverty and racism … Read more
Reclaiming Self-Sufficiency for Black Farmers: Co-Creating Policy Solutions with Lived Experience in Kentucky
Above: Amira Iwuala (left) and Morgan McKinney, 28th Class Emerson Fellows. Born and raised in Boston, I have unfortunately been blinded to the realities that Black farmers have faced in the U.S. Accustomed to urban poverty and food insecurity due to my … Read more