Where Can You Find Another Great Depression?
by Food for the Poor

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (July 15, 2009) - It's in the eyes. The dates may have changed, decades may have passed, but the despair and pain is the same and it's apparent in the mother's eyes.

In a dramatic photographic comparison, the nation's largest international charity, Food For The Poor, presents jarring images from America's Great Depression along with equally compelling photos from the Caribbean and Latin America. And what makes the comparison so powerful is the fact that the poverty, pain and hopelessness that overwhelmed the United States in the 1930s is today plaguing children and their families in developing nations.

Food For The Poor staffers frequently travel to some of the most impoverished areas in developing countries. Over many years, and after taking thousands of photographs and talking to hundreds of destitute families, the Food For The Poor staff recognized an unmistakable connection between the United States then and the Caribbean and Latin America now.

Food For The Poor's Executive Director, Angel Aloma, says many Americans struggling with the rough economy can identify with the depression-like conditions in other countries.

"I look at photos from the Great Depression - the mother from California who doesn't know how she will feed her children - and I am reminded of hundreds of images in my mind that I have seen play out every day in places like Haiti, Honduras and elsewhere," said Aloma.

Aloma added that the Great Depression is happening every day in developing countries. Today, in places like Cite Soleil, Haiti, and Nacaome, Honduras, families sleep on dirt floors in ramshackle huts, little girls walk for hours to find water, women stand in line to get food for their children, and men beg for work to support their families.

"Poverty doesn't discriminate," said Aloma. "It doesn't care about race or culture or lines on a map. The same poverty that afflicted America in the Great Depression is battering our brothers and sisters in developing nations today."

To see the Food For The Poor photographic depiction of poverty then and now, visit www.FoodForThePoor.org/depression. Food For The Poor, the largest international relief and development organization in the United States, serves the poor of the Caribbean, Latin America and the U.S. Food For The Poor provides food, emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, basic housing, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance. More than 97 percent of all donations received in 2008 went toward programs that help the poor. For more information, visit www.foodforthepoor.org.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009