Kate Thornton urges Spitalfields shoppers to squash hunger in Bangladesh

Magic FM DJ Kate Thornton warmed up shoppers at Spitalfields Market on Friday by giving out free soup and launch the new Pumpkins Against Poverty.

The event was designed to highlight the fact that 18,000 tonnes of pumpkins are needlessly wasted in the UK around Halloween*, whilst in poverty-stricken Bangladesh they are seen as a superfood.

The appeal is supporting British charity Practical Action, which is teaching extreme-poor families in Bangladesh clever techniques which allow them to grow crops on sandbanks.

The appeal is also supported by the Secretary of State for International Development Justine Greening, who has pledged to match, pound for pound, all donations to the appeal so that every donation makes double the impact.

In Bangladesh, 160 million people still live on less than £1 a day. In the north west of the country, on the banks of massive rivers which drain water from the Himalayas, people have lost their land to river erosion.

Moreover, climate change is causing devastating floods to become ever more regular, with more families losing all their possessions year after year. They are caught in a cycle of poverty which is almost inescapable.

But Practical Action has come up with a clever way of using pumpkins to feed families and supplement their income using sandbars which emerge from rivers as flood waters recede.

Previously, this land was considered barren and unusable, but through new growing techniques and training, people with no land of their own are able to grow up to 600 pumpkins a year, eating what they need and selling the excess to enable them to send their children to school, buy livestock and other foodstuffs.

Pumpkins are an ideal crop because they can be stored for up to a year and are high in Vitamin A.

Kate said: “I am supporting the Pumpkins Against Poverty appeal because it shows what a huge impact a simple, but clever idea can have on the lives of so many people.

“The soup was free and delicious – and many people donated money they would have spent on another meal to the appeal.”

So far 120,000 people have benefited from this project and with support from the public, thousands more people will benefit.

*Figures from recycling waste company Hubbub (hubbub.org.uk)

Notes for editors:

For more information, interviews or for photos from the event, contact Practical Action media officer Andrew Heath on 01926 634552 or 07800 884267

For more information about the situation in Bangladesh and the appeal, log on to www.practicalaction.org/pumpkins