World Food Day – The story behind our World Food Programme Food for Life category

 

For our World Food Day blog, Caroline Kenyon, Founder of the Awards, shares the story behind the creation of our World Food Programme Food for Life category, along with some of her favourite images from the category’s archive, and shines a light on our other charity partnerships. 

 

Words by Caroline Kenyon

World Food Day is an important day in our Awards calendar - this year, it declares the right to foods for a better life and a better future.

That seems unarguable. And yet. Almost 1 in 10 across the world goes hungry every day. With enough food produced by farmers to feed more than our current global population, and yet 2.8 billion are still too poor for a healthy diet.

While some of our categories celebrate the beauty of food for the fortunate in society, food, or rather, the lack of it, has much been in our minds since our Awards began in 2011.

It is a source of great pride that Action Against Hunger UK has been our partner charity from the beginning, receiving a proportion of the proceeds of the On the Phone category each year. Their noble mission is to save the lives of children and their families.

Then, in 2015, our category Food for the Family, was won by a stunning image called Family Meal, Arada, Eastern Chad by UK photographer Chris Terry. I was blown away by the beauty and atmosphere and love in the picture.

 

Then I saw it had been taken for the United Nations World Food Programme, the UN agency feeding more than 100 million people each year. This realisation made me determined to reach out to WFP, I could see how powerfully they used photography to tell their important stories. This triggered a chain of introductions across Europe, from Paris to Brussels to Rome, finally arriving in the inbox of Rein Skullerud, photographer and Head of their Photo Unit.

To our delight, Rein agreed to join our Judging Panel, and, after a couple of years, it was his idea to create the UN World Food Programme Food for Life category, showing the humanitarian aspects of food.

We learned more about the incredible work of WFP - on any given day, there are 5000 trucks, 20 ships and 152 aircraft on the move. We cannot describe our pride and delight when WFP received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020.

This year, it’s a great pleasure to welcome The Felix Project as a new partner to the Awards, in particular to the Food for the Family category. In under 10 years, this remarkable charity has become the largest distributor in London rescuing food that would otherwise go to waste and gave out 32m meals last year.

All of us at the World Food Photography Awards send all our community of photographers, judges, and partners as well as brave humanitarian workers everywhere, our very best wishes on World Food Day.

 

Happy with Food by M Yousuf Tushar, 2nd place, 2022

This beautiful black and white shot shows a child at the front who captivates us with his joyfulness while behind him, sombre little figures look weighed down with pensive thoughts as well as their plates of food. A flash of brightness in the hardest of settings. 

 

Lunchtime at the General Hospital of Popokabaka, Congo by Ann-Sophie Deldycke, Highly Commended, 2024

This perfectly balanced image - the rhythm of the heads from left to right, the parent’s gaze to his right and the child’s look to his left - has so much love in it. In this most basic of hospitals, two little boys tuck in to their food with gusto, watched closely by their father. A comforting moment of near normality.

 

New Life New Potential by Kristyn Taylor, Winner, 2024

The steady gaze of this woman is irresistible. She holds the kid goat as tenderly as if it were her own child - this goat may well be key to her future survival - in front of her home. Made of tarpaulins, its triangular blocks of muted colours are the perfect foil for her straight-backed and dignified stance. 

 

See more finalists images from the World Food Programme Food for Life category