Wild weather on Friday didn’t stop Oxfam GROW-RILLA gorillas setting up a guerrilla veggie garden in a Perth CBD parking bay and giving away vegetable seedlings to raise awareness of global hunger. Hundreds of other car parks were also converted to gardens all over the globe as part of World Park(ing) day.

Oxfam’s GROW campaign is trying to build up awareness about the solutions to global hunger and encouraging people to get involved in ‘Eat Local Feed Global’ activities that will be taking place in October to coincide with World Food Day.

One in seven people go to bed hungry every night. This includes 18 million people who are currently at risk of severe hunger in the Sahel region of West and Central Africa. We need to change the way we grow share and manage food so that everybody has enough to eat, always.

Oxfam is supplying information packs for Australians to hold their own ‘Eat Local Feed Global’ events or you can show your support by visiting a participating restaurant. Alternatively why not come to a GROW-RILLA gardening workshop at Perth City Farm on Saturday 20th October where you can learn about global poverty issues and how to make a garden in anything from a shopping bag to a rolled up piece of newspaper.

Addressing global hunger means changing the way we grow, share manage food and other resources. That involves governments working on global issues like climate change and increasing support for small scale food producers in developing countries who make up 80% of the world’s hungry. We also want people to make their own effort to use less resources and live more sustainably.

by Western Australia Campaign Coordinator Paddy Cullen