FOOD FOR PEACE

a schoolboy named Mario lives here with his parents it is early morning he is hungry and there is nothing to eat and reaches his father's [Music] [Music] from others change can come Oh [Music] [Music] [Music] he leaves me [Music] [Applause] [Music] like the 300 other children in his village he goes to school hungry every day knowing he will be hungry until lunchtime [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] help relieve air Oh [Music] [Music] [Music] me he comes [Music] [Music] the language DeYoung sober agree stove alcohol in class mario and the others are listless unresponsive inattentive disinterested even asleep prolonged and continual hunger goes beyond being a dull ache in the stomach and begins to corrode the mind and the spirit the teacher is trying to get somebody to answer questions about Christopher Columbus but nobody cares anything about history all they care about is that they are hungry schooling is compulsory in Peru but eating is not half the population is illiterate because it is hard for children to learn anything hard indeed even to stay in school when they're always hungry here in Mario's village the US government's food for Peace agency is serving lunch to all these children every school day for two years in the hope the Peruvian government then will take it over and keep it going it might be asked why the Peruvian government didn't do this long ago the only answer is it did not nothing happened in fact until a young man named Jack Schmitt a wheat farmer from Camden Oregon came down here representing a nonprofit organization of Great Plains wheat growers looking for new uses for American wheat he started this and the food for Peace agency later took it over but Smith is still here helping and that is he helping with today's lunch in the classrooms the children are still listless and disinterested but they know now it is almost time for lunch and they're waiting for the bell when it rings they're the first smiles seen in the village all day [Music] what they're served as a mixture made mainly of American wheat plus whatever local vegetables can be had it is boiled highly nutritious food for peace now gives school lunches to 30 million children in 85 countries in many places including this one it is about all the food they get lunch for one child every school day costs thirty three dollars for the whole year [Music] [Music] [Music] often as they wait in line their hunger is so great they can't control it any longer and they cry [Music] [Laughter] Jim Symington is 34 has sung and played his guitar around half the world and now uses his music to entertain and communicate with people in places like this it is quite a sight this place is called Leticia it's a slum one of the Batiatus of Lima there's 10,000 people that live here without water very little food they live in shanties face it up against the sides of Mount st. priests Oh ball carved out of the rock sometimes in caves mud floors the pathways or open sewers sometimes we wonder in the United States if anything we do ever really reaches people through the food for Peace program you farmers you taxpayers you letter writers have come to Leticia and you've done quite a job food for peace operates in some ninety countries and territories around the world often through the dedication and health of voluntary agencies like kin church world service many times as in the case of Leticia through private enterprise in this case the great plain sweet Association it set up the school lunch and it's going to help with others not only for humane reasons but to develop markets because you need a productive competent people to be customers someday it's a curious thing that the very little that we have done has made these people not dependent but independent that's the lesson of Leticia the Indian villagers were slow to trust the Americans because it didn't really believe anyone wanted to help them but now they are so pleased with a school lunch program they are building with their own hands a school's kitchen and lunchroom so the children can eat indoors each family taxes itself 60 cents a month to pay for an outsider offered to lend a bulldozer but they refused and insisted on doing all the work themselves [Applause] another salubrious effect because the spirit and the feeling have improved the parents in the village including Mario's have decided maybe they should be married until now they haven't bothered even though the priest has tried to persuade them he gives each couple a little lecture about how they should have done this long ago and then goes ahead with the ceremony that is plumber Noosa Vania Toby knows police Maureen was very good obedient when I kill it - it concerns your parents knowledge Conseco draws near : 30 Domini nostri jesu Mississippi men in torrents which is produce a [Music] galio all doing in Yosemite [Music] [Music] marriages are in groups of 10 or 12 at a time one of the witnesses is Miss Lucy Montoya Jack Smith's assistant a nutritionist who taught the village women how to cook and serve the school budget Mario's parents are being married and Jim Symington and his good blue suit his best man [Music] when it's all over there is a wedding party and Symington sings to them [Applause] [Music] hi I'm here [Music] al concern [Music] okay I said I'll do que la madre [Music] yellow chrisser equal to zero other pueblos quest re sorry amigo [Music] [Applause] [Applause]