Poverty Banquet

This contradiction in terms came about when the Gisborne Action For World Development held a dinner in the Presbyterian Church Hall. The event was more than unusual in that guests didn't know until they were handed their menu as they entered the "dining room" whether they would dine luxuriously as people do in the west, or whether they would eat sparingly as people do in the underdeveloped and poorer countries. It was a graphic way of bringing home to New Zealanders the plight and hunger of helpless millions of the world's population. The guest speaker at the function was Dr S. McClatchie (pathologist at Cook Hospital) whose theme was, in effect, how millions are dying from starvation while those in the affluent world are virtually eating themselves to death through overindulgence, particularly of the wrong foods.