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 "FIGHT HUNGER: WALK THE WORLD 2006": MAy 21, SamARA

BELOW IS OUR PRESS RELEASE

PLEASE ALSO READ THE UN WFP SPOTLIGHT ON SAMARA WALK WITH PICTURES
"BALOONS IN THE RAIN FOR WALK THE WORLD"

UN WFP "FIGHT HUNGER: WALK THE WORLD" WAS HELD IN SAMARA

On Sunday, May 21 Samara joined the leading world cities where "Fight Hunger: Walk the World 2006" took place, the United Nations World Food Programme global rally aiming at ending child hunger in Africa and Asia, and worldwide. The Walk in Russia was also held in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg. The main event organizer in Samara was the Progressive Youth Union with participation of Russian Youth Union, Samara Municipal University of Marina Nayanova, Movement "Delo Molodoe". Famous music television MC Dima Pavlov became the event's headliner.

Despite of morning rain, the UN WFP event attracted over 200 activists and many people at streets joined the rally on its way. The Walk started at 11:10 AM from the Fountain at Osipenko St., and the walkers moved along central streets: Novo-Sadovaya, Pervomaiskaya, Molodogvardeiskaya up to Kuibyshev Square. The Walk was surrounded by music, greetings of the Walk leader, honorary guests and participants to the citizens of Samara. The Walk's motto was "Feed hungry children!". On all the way the traffic was limited and local police provided security for the walkers. At Kuibyshev Square the organizers thanked the walkers for their personal important contribution to end with child hunger worldwide, and spread to everyone free tickets for the second stage of the Walk - the best city DJs' party "Fight Hunger: Walk the World”, which happened the same day from 11:00 PM till 4 AM at  the night club "Zvezda", the Walk's general partner in Samara. The Walk attracted great attention of the federal and local TV channels, radio stations, and printed media.

Among the walkers were the activists of the Progressive Youth Union, Russian Youth Union, Samara Municipal University of Marina Nayanova, Movement "Delo Molodoe". Leaders of regional youth NGOs, prominent people of Samara Region, sportsmen and popular DJs, as well as officials of the Mayor's Office took part in the event. The Walkers were greeted by phone by the twice Olympic Champion Oleg Saitov, who was on an urgent business travel to Nizhniy Novgorod at the moment. Unfortunately, the regional political leaders, who had been invited in person to attend the event, refrained from joining the walkers. Meanwhile, according to the UN WFP, more than 800 million people in the World know what it means to be always hungry, 300 millions of them are chronically hungry children. Every day 24 thousand people die from hunger, 10 thousands of them are children. The direct effect from the Walk is the real reduction of those suffering from hunger in devastated regions of the World. Even one click at www.fighthunger.org gives 17 USD cents for school feeding programmes what is almost enough to feed one hungry child with a meal. "Fight Hunger: Walk the World" was invented in 2004 as a means to reach the UN Millennium Development Goals, such as decrease of chronic hunger worldwide, accessible education, lessening of the poor, HIV prevention etc.

"Our Walk became a really unique event. For the first time Samara joined the leading world cities where the UN WFP global rally took place. The real outcome of the Walk is the decrease of the hungry people because when we attract attention to the hunger problem, thus we attract more sponsors money and more governments efforts to deal with it. I'd like to thank everyone who felt the pain of the suffering and joined our Walk in Samara. I am also sure that the Walk became an important contribution to the development of civic society in Russia", - stated Alexander Andreev, President of the Progressive Youth Union and Plenipotentiary Representative of the UN WFP in Samara for the Walk organisation.

«We can't stay away from the problems of the World, especially when they are also urgent for our country. There are many homeless children in Russia and few money for subsidy school feeding. But when children study good feeding is essential for their good learning, development, which means healthy generation and the future of the nation, what is stated in the Russian National Project "Education", - stated Marina Nayanova, Rector of Samara Municipal University, Head of the Education Panel of the Public Council at Samara Regional Legislature, and the partner of Samara Walk.

Local General Partner: Night Club "Zvezda"

Local Media Sponsors:

Radio Samara Maximum (FM 104.3),

"Love Radio" in Samara (FM 106.6)

Radio "Megapolis" (FM 103.6)

Global Partner: TNT

Global Media Sponsors: BBC World and CNN.

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"Fight Hunger: Walk the World" Web Site: www.fighthunger.org

Detailed Information on the Walk

The Union Press Service