The Hunger Project-Netherlands mobilizes high-level support

By Jacqueline de Leeuw of The Hunger Project-Netherlands

The Hunger Project-Netherlands held a big event with Holland's elite community. Over 110 high level people - the Mayor of Den Haag, the head of the Red Cross, celebrities, journalists, representatives from Habitat for Humanity, Amnesty, Unilever and other organizations and very rich people attended a full-house event to present The Hunger Project’s work.

Paul van Vlissingen, one of the wealthiest men in the Netherlands spoke about his experience with our African partners in Malawi. He said how impressed and inspired he was by The Hunger Project's work of people's mobilization and acknowledged us for our work with women.

Hans Eenhoorn spoke about the Hunger Task Force and the key role women will have to play for the end of hunger.

Many new opportunities emerged from this strategic event. There are now numerous people who the Dutch team will contact because they want to invest. Others are becoming door-openers to the companies they work for.

In addition, about 20 people want to become "The Hunger Project-Ambassadors" - that is, fundraising-activists. The Dutch team will invite them to a workshop to deepen their understanding of the work and principles of The Hunger Project..

The Publicity Campaign caused a small riot in The Netherlands.

In our small country, people could see at 4,000 places the disturbing texts that expressed the subjugation of women in the countries where hunger persists. 

Some local council decided to remove the billboards. This caused a lot of publicity and discussions in the public press! One of our targets this year was that half of the Dutch community would know The Hunger Project as a ‘cutting edge’ organization for ending hunger in the world.

With the publicity we have had so far (5 National newspapers, several local, with small and big articles, TV broadcasting twice, and a national radio program) we think we already have done a great job at this target. We made clear in an extra week of exposure, offered by the ‘billboard-proprietor’ for free, that there is a direct link between the subjugation of women and the persistence of hunger. There is again the call for action and a request to go to our website.

On the website we have had 5,000 hits in 2 weeks  (normally we have 2000 in a whole year!), and we have our first investors coming in through our website. A lot of other relations and support are coming our way from this ‘cutting edge’ publicity-campaign.