The Partnership

For the past few days I have been at the World Food Program (WFP) Head Quarters (HQ) in Rome. The reason for my visit to the WFP is to do some training. This training is done by all TNT members of staff that go onto the “School Feeding Program” and “Emergency Response Stand By Teams”. It covers all manner of things from basic health and safety issues down to managing stress while on assignment. Even though I am not going on a School Feeding Project (Food for Education – FFE) I have found it very interesting. The one of the aspects of this training was about the partnership between TNT and WFP.

Back in December 2007 TNT and WFP celebrated its 5th anniversary. In doing so both TNT and WFP extended this partnership indefinitely so long as the partnership remained beneficial to both parties. Being part of this partnership makes me incredibly proud.

TNT is WPF largest corporate contributor. In 2007 TNT donated US$ 9 million ($2 million in cash the rest in services (trucks, planes, manpower etc)) As a result of this TNT has a department called “Moving the World” that facilitates fund raising exercises and awareness (Walk the World/ Colour the World), coordinating manpower for WFP projects. (School Feeding Project, etc)

In the past 5 years Moving the World has aided the following.
30 Emergency Situations (supplying resources)
10 Air Lifts (Food, manpower etc)

Why does this partnership work so well?

Both TNT and WFP have a common core business entity. We are both in the logistics business. TNT moves freight from point A to point B. WFP moves food and aid from point A to any where it is needed. It made sense to form this alliance.

This partnership is not exclusive. Anyone can play a part in it. Not just TNT Staff, family and friends in Moving the World projects. Any member of the public can help WFP raise the nearly US$3 billion (yes BILLION!) needed to feed people around the world.

Here are some very impressive stats for WFP

2006 WFP fed 88 million people in 82 countries.
They did this with:
12 000 staff (World Wide)
80 aircraft
40 ships
5000 trucks
and a bit of help from TNT !
WFP is the largest humanitarian agency in the world.

Why is it important to help?
800 Million people suffer from hunger in the world. Most of these are women and children.

1 child dies every 5 seconds from hunger.

Hunger claims more lives than AIDS, TB and Malaria combined.

So what can you as an individual do to help?

Well seeing as you’re on the internet reading this why not go to the following websites to see what you can do?

WFP – http://www.wfp.org
Or for a real practical and fun way of helping raise some money you can always play the “Free Rice Game” where you can earn rice by playing a word game. It’s FREE and addictive! – http://www.freerice.com

If you are a TNT staff member, or know of TNT staff, go and pay the Moving the World site a visit for more news on WFP fund raising projects. You can also find blog’s of staff members that are both currently on assignments or have been on assignments – http://www.movingtheworld.org

Every bit helps!

Food for Education (School Feeding Program) fed 20 million school children in 71 countries (55% of children in Africa) in 2006.