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Tina Fey lends her voice to the introductory video for Mercy Corps' Action Center to End World Hunger Photo: Mercy Corps
New York City - Can a "lemon" help fight world hunger? Yes, if it is "Liz Lemon" - or actually Emmy Award-winning actress/comedienne/writer Tina Fey, who portrays the fictional protagonist on NBC's hit sitcom "30 Rock."
Fey - as well as Ann Curry, co-anchor of NBC's "Today" and CNN's senior international correspondent Nic Robertson - will help welcome and educate visitors at the soon-to-be-opened Mercy Corps Action Center to End World Hunger in New York City.
Fey is hosting the Center's welcome video, which offers an introduction to the issues of hunger and poverty. Curry and Robertson are narrating part of the "Training Towers" exhibit, a set of four interactive towers that highlight specific global challenges related to hunger and poverty, as well as case studies of how local residents and aid groups like Mercy Corps are working together to address these challenges.
Mercy Corps, the global relief and development organization, will officially open the Action Center to End World Hunger in Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan to coincide with World Food Day on Thursday, Oct. 16. The first-of-its-kind facility will serve as a platform for education and action, helping visitors understand what they can do to become part of the solution. A companion Action Center will open next year in Portland, OR, home to Mercy Corps' global headquarters.
"Ending world hunger, giving children a healthy start in life, helping parents build strong families could not be more important," said Robertson. "Through the years I've been reporting from war zones and disasters around the world the images of suffering that stay in my mind longest are the needy often forgotten and overlooked by the rest of the world. It's made all the more painful knowing it need not be this way. So when I was given the opportunity to help the Action Center to End World Hunger I had no hesitation giving my full support. The more we learn, the more we can help, the more we help the better the lives of countless others will be. And few places need that help more than Afghanistan.
Each night, almost one billion people around the world go to bed hungry. Yet hunger itself is not the problem; it is merely a symptom. Hunger is driven by a wide range of underlying root causes - challenges faced by communities in every country and greatly exacerbated by the current food crisis both in the U.S. and around the world. The Action Center will help illuminate these many root causes, such as poor agricultural practices, human rights abuses, and the impacts of climate change. By identifying and highlighting these underlying issues, the Action Center will seek to generate the public resolve necessary to create lasting change.
Designed by Ed Schlossberg and his team at ESI Design, the Action Center will welcome visitors of all ages, with an emphasis on students, parents, and teachers. Utilizing a wide range of interactive multimedia content, including compelling and authentic stories, as well as images, data, and voices, it will bring to life daily experiences of communities and aid agencies striving to improve lives around the globe. In addition to providing information, it will challenge visitors to analyze pressing global issues and commit to taking action. It will present a broad portfolio of meaningful action so that everyone - whether they are life-long activists or only have a minute to spare - can join the effort to eradicate hunger.
The Action Center experience will begin at the Irish Hunger Memorial, which is across the street from the new facility. The Action Center will help bring the significance of the Memorial to life, linking historic accounts of hunger and poverty with current crises worldwide.
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