HANNA GARTNER
Since it began about ten years ago an organization called "The Hunger Project" has won a great deal of support for its stated goal, of ending world hunger by the year 2000. Celebrities like John Denver and actress Valerie Harper have been active in The Hunger Project's campaign to generate the will, it says, is needed to end hunger. Since 1977 this registered charity has raised tens of millions of dollars, and says it has signed up five million people as members. But some of its critics say it's nothing more than a public relations campaign. And many are wary of its connection to EST, the self-development movement begun in California, devoted to what it calls: "personal transformation."
FOOTAGE OF MAN IN CLASSROOM LECTURING TO CHILDREN
You see, one of the problems in dealing with the issue of hunger, is that it's difficult to even get people to sit down and talk about it.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
Through briefings like this one in an elementary school near Toronto, The Hunger Project carries out its campaign to end hunger in the world by the year 2000. It really can happen, they say, if we can just generate enough will among ordinary people to get the job done.
THE HUNGER PROJECT LECTURER, IN CLASSROOM
We're going to be looking at this subject of hunger, and we're actually going to be looking at it very closely.
FOOTAGE OF THE HUNGER PROJECT VOLUNTEER ON A STREET TALKING TO A MAN AND A WOMAN
All you do is fill out this card, and you can decide, just check off this box –
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
In countries all over the world, Hunger Project volunteers ask people on the street to join their campaign.
WOMAN VOLUNTEER FOR THE HUNGER PROJECT, TALKING TO BYSTANDERS
You fill out your name and address. By the end of this month we'll have enrolled five million people throughout the world. You'll be part of five million people who have taken a stand and said: "No more."
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
People are asked to sign a card that says: "The Hunger Project is mine completely. An idea whose time has come." They're also asked on the card to make monthly donations of fifteen to a hundred dollars to The Hunger Project. The Hunger Project's Canadian headquarters is in Toronto. And in the last two years they have raised one million in this country. Their educational materials, including an impressive four-hundred page book, have won them praise from several experts and organizations in the field of Third World development. The head of the U.S. Save the Children Federation, and two United Nations experts serve on their board of directors. But The Hunger Project has also had its share of controversy. Their Toronto office is next door to the organization that is at the heart of much of that controversy – EST, started by Werner Erhard of California. Erhard is also the principal founder of The Hunger Project.
CAMERA PANS TO OFFICE BULIDING, WINDOW LISTS THE FOLLOWING:
Toronto Area Centre Werner Erhard Educational Associates, LTD. The Forum Education For Living Communication Workshop More Time Workshop Action Workshop
FOOTAGE OF WERNER ERHARD
Those people, got peashooter minds to think with.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
EST is a quasi-religious self-discovery movement, that involves emotionally intense weekend seminars. Erhard says some of the ideas behind EST, which is now known as "The Forum," come from Zen Buddhism and Scientology.
INTERVIEW WITH JOAN HOLMES
JOAN HOLMES
Well, you know five million people are enrolled in The Hunger Project, more people enrolled last year than any other year.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
The executive director at The Hunger Project's global headquarters in New York, is a former EST executive – Joan Holmes.
HANNA GARTNER
Back to this card, it is – it was my impression when I first got it, uh, talking about people dying and that they don't have to and that I could make a difference, and I can do it in various ways including contributing to The Hunger Project – my impression was that I'd be contributing to the feeding of the hungry.
JOAN HOLMES
Is that right?
HANNA GARTNER
Yes.
JOAN HOLMES
Yes, well I think you've got the wrong impression from that card. We make it very clear in our literature that we are not a relief organization, we are not a development organization, what we do, is create a worldwide constituency for the end of hunger. It's our belief, that unless more of us are committed and make our voice known, we will not get the end of world hunger on the international agenda, and it needs to be there in order to have hunger end.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
According to their own 1985 financial statement, The Hunger Project made close to seven million dollars in the United States alone. Of that seven million they gave away two-hundred and eleven thousand dollars to relief and development agencies. That's about three percent. Of that total revenue of seven million dollars in the U.S., six million came from donations.
JOAN HOLMES
The six million dollars is spent on the programs I was about to tell you. You know we do the newspaper, we have a book, we have put together a briefing, it's an educational experience two to three hours educational experience, about five-hundred thousand people have taken that briefing, we have given away about a million dollars of grants to organizations that are doing work in the field of development and relief.
HANNA GARTNER
How much?
JOAN HOLMES
About a million dollars.
HANNA GARTNER
Really? I, if I've misunderstood – in 1985 I understood your revenue was about seven million and the grants you gave were two-hundred and eleven thousand dollars.
JOAN HOLMES
What I was talking about is overall the history of The Hunger Project we've given about a million dollars to organizations or groups –
HANNA GARTNER
In the individual history of the project?
JOAN HOLMES
In the individual history, that's right.
HANNA GARTNER
How much money did The Hunger Project earn?
JOAN HOLMES
Gosh I don't know in terms of the first year it's about three million dollars, probably now seven or eight million dollars.
HARVEY MCKINNON
I think if people want to end world hunger there are a number of other organizations that they could spend their time with, and give their money to that would have a much greater impact.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
Harvey McKinnon is the senior fundraiser for Oxfam Canada, which has a policy of not criticizing other organizations. But it has taken the position that it will not endorse or support The Hunger Project. Nor will it accept money from them.
HARVEY MCKINNON
Well back in the early eighties, uh there was uh some pressure from Hunger Project to cooperate, to have Oxfam cooperate with them. And at the time we did not like the kind of work they were doing. We had some questions about, uh their background, their possible, their alleged connections with the EST organization.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
Paul Ares is executive director of the World Food Day Association of Canada, which recently held a food drive. The Hunger Project has members on some provincial committees, but the national World Food Day Association rejected them.
HANNA GARTNER
What was the basis of the rejection?
PAUL ARES
Mainly that they felt that they were using mind bending techniques to recruit people and also that they were diverting a lot of well intentioned, well meaning energy, towards, really a blind alley. Getting people going in circles, this, the whole idea of developing a will to ending hunger has no reference whatsoever to how we will really come about to solving the hunger problems in the world.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
A senior advisor on African development to the United Nations Secretary General is Canadian Ambassador, Stephen Lewis. He says he recently had a strange encounter with The Hunger Project.
STEPHEN LEWIS
A curious episode - apparently on the corner of Yonge and Bloor in Toronto one evening people were soliciting funds for The Hunger Project. And when they were approached by others who knew something about The Hunger Project, and were suspicious of its origins, a kind of vigorous exchange occurred. During which exchange, The Hunger Project people yelled at their adversaries: "Well, Stephen Lewis supports us!"
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
Lewis says when he heard the story, he checked his files, and found out that as he suspected – he had never endorsed The Hunger Project – although he had granted them an interview for their newspaper. He's since told The Hunger Project he wants nothing to do with any organization associated with Werner Erhard.
STEPHEN LEWIS
I didn't realize Werner Erhard had anything to do with The Hunger Project. And when I realized that, a little palpitation came to my heart. I mean, one must be careful, I'm not interested in any say, in anything actionable – but I, I have no use for EST. And when I hear that EST is deeply involved in The Hunger Project, I get uneasy. And I don't want to be associated with something that Werner Erhard has something to do with. It's as simple as that.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
Carol and Noel Giambalvo of Long Island, New York, were for several years were heavily involved in EST, and later The Hunger Project. They say they got out of The Hunger Project after realizing they were involved with an organization that was controlling their lives. Now they try to help others to get out, through what they call exit-counseling.
NOEL GIAMBALVO
We were to live our lives in a way, so that it would result in the end of hunger.
HANNA GARTNER
What does that –
NOEL GIAMBALVO
What does that mean? Okay, in other words what we were being really told to do was to, to make the, the motivation, the prime goal of our life – the end of hunger. And whatever was appropriate for us to do, along that line –
HANNA GARTNER
Like what?
NOEL GIAMBALVO
Well, like for us it was going out and spending, eighty hours, sixty to eighty hours a week, doing volunteer work for The Hunger Project. What we later discovered was that many of the, the techniques that were used to get us to keep doing that kind of work were controlling techniques. Emotional manipulation existed at every conference or workshop that we attended.
CAROL GIAMBALVO
The two levels are: to the outside, to the public, it's about hunger. To the inside, to the volunteer, it's about having your life, living your life in a way, under the principles and abstractions of The Hunger Project, which Werner Erhard wrote. If you, as a person, lived your life that way, and if you can have the environment that you live in, meaning the people that you live with live their life that way, that when there is a critical mass of people who live their life in that way, hunger will end.
NOEL GIAMBALVO
It sounds very airy fairy. And it is. When we look back upon it now, it's a very airy fairy concept.
EXCERPT FROM EST PUBLICATION: Joan Holmes is The est Foundation's manager for a recently announced project that has been formally named The Hunger Project – The end of starvation: Creating the context of responsibility and sufficiency.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
Hunger Project executive director Joan Holmes who once said EST transformed her life, was described in the early days as EST's manager for The Hunger Project. And before that, she was manager of an organization called: "est in Education."
HANNA GARTNER
What is The Hunger Project's relationship to the quasi-religious self-discovery movement founded by Werner Erhard, EST?
JOAN HOLMES
EST was one of the organizations that helped us during our founding stage. They actually gave us the opportunity to speak to the people who were enrolled in their programs and at the time, and to their friends.
HANNA GARTNER
To what degree is EST still influencing The Hunger Project?
JOAN HOLMES
Well, you know they never influenced The Hunger Project. The Hunger Project has always been an organization legally and financially separate.
HANNA GARTNER
I ask this only because one of the many pieces of information you kindly sent us for our research – your director of communications also sent something from the World Council of Churches, and I, that says: "EST remains the philosophical inspiration for the work of The Hunger Project."
JOAN HOLMES
Well it never was the philosophical – I don't, you know I can't respond to that. What I can tell you is, what our principles are. And uh, you know I know it's a hard thing to get, and a lot of people consider too cynical to believe, but we actually do think, that if individuals take on the issue of hunger, that if they get committed, that they get informed, and that they get educated and they inform other individuals – that a worldwide constituency can bring forth that work that needs to be done, to end hunger on the planet.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
In an early Hunger Project publication called Quantum Leap, a man who has been a senior official of The Hunger Project wrote: "True satisfaction comes from the transformation of Self realized by maintaining the integrity of Werner Erhard's abstractions and generating principles." In our investigation of The Hunger Project, we have obtained several hours of audio-tapes made at high-level Hunger Project meetings. Joan Holmes is heard on these tapes repeatedly telling the workers not to listen to their minds – a message at the heart of the EST philosophy of Werner Erhard. And urging them – to sign up more people, and work harder.
AUDIO-TAPE OF JOAN HOLMES IN HUNGER PROJECT MEETING
Raise it. Raise the bar. Up the ante. Press yourself into more brilliance. You've just begun. We've just begun. We've got a long way to go. You're beautifully trained. You put yourself together well. You have a great relationship. Deliver on the promise. Raise the bar. Raise the ante, and go for it. And you will need to decide to do that, and do it, in spite of what the people around you are going to say sometimes, and in spite of the instructions your mind is going to give you, whether you ask for it or not.
CAROL GIAMBALVO
We were told by the manager of New York State Hunger Project volunteers that: "Don't you know, that every person you brief, is one less person dying of hunger?" And just hearing that, again, it just, I mean that's cult thinking. I mean that is bizarre. That just because I educate one person about the facts about hunger – that one less person is going to die of hunger? I said something is wrong.
AUDIO-TAPE OF JOAN HOLMES IN HUNGER PROJECT MEETING
And if you stop now, you'll –
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
On the tape, Joan Holmes tells the volunteers and staff that by doing work on themselves – they have lowered the world's infant mortality rate, or I.M.R.
AUDIO-TAPE OF JOAN HOLMES IN HUNGER PROJECT MEETING
Our personal I.M.R.'s are twenty-four people are dying a minute. And I'll tell you we did a hell of a lot of work on ourselves to get it down that far. And, there's a lot more to go. So if you stay at the same rate, you will go backwards, there's no doing that. You can't do that in this game, it will, come back in on you. You will stop producing results. The problems that you solved in your life will be resurrected. So all that, (laughter) all that stuff that you already handled in your families and your personal things, that will all come back to do again – you remember how great it was the first time? (laughter) It's going to be even worse the second time. And that's can come back like that. They are solved now, if you continue.
HANNA GARTNER
To what degree, are those briefings that you were talking about, where this process takes place – self developmental? To what degree do I work on myself as an individual, as a person?
JOAN HOLMES
That's not the point of the briefings at all. The point of the briefings is to find out where hunger persists. What countries it's in.
HANNA GARTNER
So it's –
JOAN HOLMES
To find out, how many people died. To find out which part is famine and which part is chronic hunger. And then there is, uh, the last part, will focus on what actions you can take as an individual.
HANNA GARTNER
I asked you this question because I, I listened to about two hours of, of part of the lecture some of which you gave –
JOAN HOLMES
Oh, great.
HANNA GARTNER
That The Hunger Project puts together.
JOAN HOLMES
Yes.
HANNA GARTNER
And some of them confuse me, because there are, you spoke about – don't listen to your mind, I was confused, and I picked one clip, this is you:
AUDIO-TAPE OF JOAN HOLMES IN HUNGER PROJECT MEETING
Our personal I.M.R.'s are twenty-four people are dying a minute. And I'll tell you we did a hell of a lot of work on ourselves to get it down that far. And, there's a lot more to go. So if you stay at the same rate, you will go backwards, there's no doing that. You can't do that in this game, it will, come back in on you. You will stop producing results. The problems that you solved in your life will be resurrected.
HANNA GARTNER
See this I have a problem understanding –
JOAN HOLMES
Understanding that?
HANNA GARTNER
Yes I, to me it, it almost seems like a threat. If you lower your quota on people you bring into The Hunger Project, your life is going to fall apart.
JOAN HOLMES
Oh is that right? Yes, well –
HANNA GARTNER
That's what I heard.
JOAN HOLMES
Well, I think what you got was that you got it out of context, and that's unfortunate. What it means is that we have produced a lot of results. And there's a lot more that needs to be produced in order to have hunger end.
AUDIO-TAPE OF JOAN HOLMES IN HUNGER PROJECT MEETING
You need to raise the targets. You need to increase the gradient. You're on a very high gradient. Don't get off. Be very dangerous to you. Things will get very messed up for you, if you do that.
HANNA GARTNER, VOICE-OVER
Members of The Hunger Project have been active in some relief and development agencies. But Paul Ares of the World Food Day Association says energy spent on The Hunger Project could be better applied elsewhere.
PAUL ARES
I think they're – they're diverting a lot of support that many other organizations who are actually bringing about structural changes or at least have it in their strategy to do so. And, they're keeping these people away from that and involving them in some type of a mind bending exercise. That's mind bending when you take it to a point where the people become zealots, and focus on nothing else, they don't focus on the reality around them. That's what I mean by mind bending, is that it takes, it diverts your attention, it gets you away from the real world, and into an illusion.
HANNA GARTNER
But they are successful in that they have raised the consciousness of, they claim, five million people throughout the world. I'm sure relief agencies would love to have that kind of support.
PAUL ARES
Raise consciousness as to what? To The Hunger Project and to going out and signing up more people – that's all they raised consciousness. They don't raise consciousness to the fact that we have to solve poverty.
AUDIO-TAPE OF JOAN HOLMES IN HUNGER PROJECT MEETING
JOAN HOLMES
So we're going to have twenty-five thousand people at least briefed, yes?
STAFF
Yes!
JOAN HOLMES
We're going to have at least twelve thousand people sign up as an expression of their sufficiency in the financial family this summer, yes?
STAFF
Yes!
JOAN HOLMES
And we're going to do all the other opportunities that are afforded to us by the universe ending hunger that come to The Hunger Project so we can express the end of hunger and starvation and we don't even know what they are yet, but when they come, we're going to do them, Hunger Project style, completely, lovingly, and effectively, and earlier than anyone thought we could get it done, yes?
STAFF
Yes!
