Walk the World 2010

The biggest walk took place in Burkina Faso, where some 20,000 participants gathered in Ouagadougou for an event organised by first lady Chantal Compaore. The smallest walk counted just one participant in New Zealand, where TNT Country Director Ruud Smeets braved stormy weather on his own, in the name of the fight against hunger.

The annual event, organised by TNT and partners WFP, DSM and Unilever, mobilised 130,300 people to raise awareness and funds for a programme that provides school meals to poor children. At least 156walks took place in 58 countries across all 24 time zones, raising enough money to provide a whole year of meals for 14,000 schoolchildren.

“In an incredible wave of solidarity, the world came forward to say that child hunger is totally unacceptable,” said WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran.

This year Walk the World attracted a lot of media attention. Stories and interviews in newspapers, on internet, on television and an extensive report on CNN made sure that our call to stop child hunger was heard in the farthest corners of the world.

CEO Peter Bakker joined a rain-drenched walk on the beach in the Netherlands. For the first time, TNT Iraq organised a walk in the town of Erbil in the Kurdistan Region, in order to highlight the risk of food insecurity for schoolchildren there.

Other walks brought the word on hunger to some of the world’s most treasured heritage sites, from Rome’s Piazza del Popolo to the ancient city of Jerash in Jordan; the Sri Lankan beachside town of Negombo to Indonesia’s buzzing capital Jakarta; from the rural town of Mulanje in Malawi to Manhattan’s Battery Park.

More Walk the World

• Download the Walk the World 2010 Factsheet
• Go to the Walk the World site to see information, videos and photos of walks around the world.
• Watch Walk the world footage from all over the world
• The funds raised will go to WFP’s school feeding programme. Every year, WFP provides nutritious school meals to over 20 million poor children around the world. Find out more about how this food is helping to change their lives.