NGO Profile: Hunger Free World – Creating a World without Hunger by Realizing the “Right to Food”

日本語で読む

Hunger Free World (HFW) is an international cooperation NGO working toward a world without hunger. It points out that although enough food is produced in the world, one in 13 people faces chronic undernourishment. It regards being able to obtain food by one's own efforts as a basic human right, and supports residents' self-reliance to realize this "right to food."

It began in April 1984 as the Japan branch of a US-based NGO and became independent in June 2000 as an international cooperation NGO headquartered in Japan. It was established as a specified nonprofit corporation that September and was certified as a certified NPO corporation by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government in June 2023. Since October 2008, it has served every year as the secretariat for World Food Day Month together with other organizations.

On site, it practices "resident-led participatory development": leaders chosen from among the residents receive training, call on their neighbors, and carry out the projects the community needs together. Its policy is to withdraw from an area once residents can continue the projects on their own. In Japan, it runs a campaign to collect unused postcards, awareness-raising for schools and companies, and takes in volunteers.

Key points

• Resident-led participatory development aimed at realizing the "right to food"
• The 24th postcard collection campaign drew 83,196 people and 219 companies and groups nationwide, raising a total of 209,437,648 yen
• Secretariat for World Food Day Month every year since 2008