Mission:
To show what hunger is like from the point of view of those who experience it every day.

Background:
The Hunger Banquet Web site is part of the international development and relief agency Oxfam America's Fast for a World Harvest campaign. For over thirty years, the fast has raised awareness and gathered donations of more than $10 million to help the 842 million people worldwide who suffer from hunger.

Outstanding Web Features:
The Hunger Banquet site deals with a serious subject in an ingenious way. Visitors are invited to pull up a seat at a virtual table, where they are given (or can choose) the identity of one of five people whose ability to put food on their tables is tenuous: a Guatemalan coffee grower, a Cambodian widow, a teenager in the Ecuadorian rainforest, a single mother from Mozambique, and a young cotton farmer in Mali. By following links, visitors learn about the person's work, lifestyle, customs, traditional foods, and country of origin. The story becomes more complex — and political — when they click "Continue" and find out about the poverty-stricken man's or woman's more prosperous counterpart and the economic reality behind his or her plight. The Web site provides additional information about the causes of hunger, and reports on positive changes taking place in some of the countries represented at the Hunger Banquet table.