I don’t remember where I heard this painful little story, which is all about abject poverty and hunger. In a poor family with three kids, the youngest one dies of hunger and malnutrition. Quite often they found it difficult to have food even for one time a day. However, after the little one died, their neighbours came with food and the young kids were happy.

The elder kid was very young who could not comprehend the gravity of death, and he asked his mother why the neighbours brought them food.

“It’s because your younger brother died, sonny,” said the weeping mother, who was so frail and deep in pain.

Death was something that brings you food, felt the little kid, who tasted hunger at a very young age. A few days passed like this, and then slowly the food supply from the neighbours stopped. Things were back to square one. Once again hunger and poverty engulfed the family.

One day the hungry young kid pointed his fingers towards his young brother and asked, “Mom, when will he die?”

I still feel the pain while writing these lines. Yes, it is fiction but there underlies the reality, which you and I cannot ignore.

Poverty is not just about hunger and malnutrition; its manifestations also include limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion, as well as the lack of participation in decision-making, according to the United Nations.

Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods, it says. In the post-Covid world, which is also affected by the Ukraine conflict, the cost of living crisis has pushed 71 million people into poverty, according to another UN document, which says a global effort is now needed to help shield the poorest from the impact of rapidly rising prices.

During the Covid-19 days, the world was more empathetic, I feel. As is said in the tenets of Islam, the poor and needy got the support from the wealthy. There was a sense of empathy and it somehow helped the poorest of the poorest with food. That’s the essence of zakat, one of the five Pillars of Islam, and the world followed it irrespective of religion, whatever be the reason. But now we are back to painful statistical data – 6 percent of the global population would still be living in extreme poverty in 2030, missing the target of ending poverty.

And this data takes me to a dream. Will there be a day, a single day, when there are no hungry human beings? I know, even that could be a utopian concept when the poor become poorer and the rich become richer in the new world order.

But I feel at least there should be one day when there are no hungry ones around us. Not for the UN to make a data sheet, but for you and me to feel happy that there is smile around us, and no child weeps with hunger at least for a day.

Forget your religion, forget your faith and forget your politics. Forget your wealth and forget your ego. Just be a human being who touches the grassroots. As I was writing this, a friend of mine shared a cartoon from my native India, drawn by cartoonist Unny, in The Indian Express. Based on the report from National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report that one in four of the recorded 1,64,033 suicide victims in India during 2021 was a daily wage earner, it said ‘Give us this amrit day our daily job!’.

That’s it! Poverty is engulfing the world. So, along with the promises and action plans to alleviate poverty, we as humans should take a decision and be part of a network, which is still ‘non-existent’, to ensure a day for sumptuous meals for the whole world. Where there is a will there’s a way is the adage that I still believe. If that one day happens, I am sure that will be the beginning of eradicating poverty and hunger from the world.

If I and you can take that decision, to ensure there is a single day when nobody is hungry, it will slowly bloom into a global movement. Yes, let’s be empathetic and be humane for a colourful tomorrow!

About the author: Reena Rahman is the Chief Executive Officer of Sun Air carrier based in Khartoum, Sudan