POVERTY
Remember this??
THE ‘MAKE POVERTY HISTORY MARCH’
(all pictures in this blog come from that march)
July 2cd 2005, Edinburgh, The biggest political gathering Scotland has ever seen. This was the one time when WE had the opportunity to influence the big guys, the world players, they were meeting in the G8 summit at Gleneagles the following week and WE, the people of Scotland had the chance to say…
’Hey you guys, look at us, YOU are in OUR country and WE want YOU to make world poverty HISTORY’’.
We marched, all the way around Edinburgh, we wore white and before long a huge white ring of people could be seen circling Edinburgh. They took pictures of it from the air. There was a carnival atmosphere, there was music and marching bands and stalls and flags and banners and children playing and people dancing. People arrived in busses from all over the country, they came from other countries. On the way, if one bus marked ‘Make Poverty History’, met or passed another one, every one would wave and cheer. The organisers expected 250,000 people but in the end there were many more. I know this happened because I was there, yes, really, I was there. I still have the tee shirt in my drawer and my photos are now posted. We thought we would make a BIG difference right away. We were wrong. We made very little difference, just a few minor concessions. Look around the world today, three years later and what do you see? You see Poverty every where, did we make a difference??………………..
Maybe we made a little difference to just a few people, maybe we prepared the ground a little; maybe we sowed a few seeds, seeds of hope for a few people. And if that is all we achieved; it was worth it.
AND NOW WE HAVE BLOG ACTION DAY FOR POVERTY
Will this make a difference?? The temptation is to think not, it’s so easy to think, ‘‘what’s the point?, nothing ever changes’’. The point it, IT COULD, but not if every one sits back and does nothing. There are more people in our history who have fought for out freedoms, liberties and justice than I have space to mention. Without these people ours lives would be very different and without OUR input the lives of millions in the developing world will never change.
This international fight against world poverty is only asking that you; you who live in the developed world and know nothing of abject poverty, do what ever you can to ensure the whole world enjoys some of the most basic human rights that you take completely for granted.
How are we to do this??, good question, first maybe we need to understand a little of what we are dealing with.
Check this out
http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty
* Almost half the world — over 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
* The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.
* Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
* Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen.*OMG… did you read that bit about weapons!!!
* 1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).
And this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7583719.stm
The World Bank has warned that world poverty is much greater than previously thought.
It has revised its previous estimate and now says that 1.4 billion people live in poverty, based on a new poverty line of $1.25 per day.
This is substantially more than its earlier estimate of 985 million people living in poverty in 2004.
And this
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908762.html
In 2005 there were 982 million people out of the developing world's 4.8 billion people living on $1 per day, while another 2.5 billion (40% of the world's population) were living on less than $2 per day2. In 2005,
THIS IS THE BIT THAT REALLY UPSETS ME
The poorest 40% of the world population accounted for 5% of global income. The richest 20% accounted for 75% of world income, and the richest 10% accounted for 54%
UGH….. HOW SICK IS THAT!!
Maybe these statistics don’t move you; sometimes it needs the human touch to understand the reality of what is happening.
Try this
http://allafrica.com/stories/200809151171.html
A rusty signpost with the words: "Mudhara Ticha. You are welcome, but don't be a spy," inscribed in white paint, greets visitors to a homestead surrounded by a corroded barbed wire fence.
A brick structure under iron roofing, two huts and a small granary make up the homestead, in Nyanga's Zondo village, that is home to 14 year-old Tichaona Mubako who has been living there alone since he was 12. His father died two years ago and his mother earlier in 2004. Both parents died of HIV/Aids-related diseases.
Ever wondered what it would be like to have no clean water??
If you have here is an interesting video.
http://www.worldvision.org.uk/server.php?show=nav.2116
We all love children, have you any idea how many die every second of every day??
Check this out
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
Number of children in the world
2.2 billion
Number in poverty
1 billion (every second child)
Shelter, safe water and health
For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:
* 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
* 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)
* 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)
Children out of education worldwide
121 million
Survival for children, Worldwide,
* 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
* 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation
Health of children
Worldwide,
* 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized
* 15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom)
AND SO THE LIST GOES ON; But what can we do??
The most important thing is to lobby the politicians, for weeks now every ones pages have been full of Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden and of course lets not forget Sarah Palin (as if we could). I tend not to comment on these pages cos ….. well I’m not American (but I did REALLY enjoy that video/song about OHHHHH Sara Palin, that was soooo funny). Point is, how much space has been taken up with discussion about eradicating world poverty? How important do people think this issue is? Who watched the video on Sea’s page…. Remember what it said…’Think outside the box’, guess this is the time to practice that.
This is where I started…………….Make Poverty History
http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/
and this is what they suggest we all do
TAKE ACTION NOW
pressure politicians and decision makers to help make poverty history.
DROP THE DEBT
Poor countries are still repaying unaffordable loans which the rich world gave irresponsibly. Some of these were to oppressive regimes, often for arms sales. Others were for useless projects from which only Western companies benefited. Still others were on unfair terms.
VULTURE FUNDS
Vulture funds are private companies that buy up cheap poor country debts, and then sue for huge profits. Earlier this year Donegal International sued Zambia for $55 million from a debt it bought for $3 million. It was awarded over $15 million - money which Zambia needed to invest in teachers, doctors and clean water supplies.
TRADE JUSTICE
The Trade Justice Movement is calling on the Governments to use their full influence to stop unfair deals going ahead, to listen to the serious concerns of poor countries and work with those countries to develop new deals that will help deliver trade justice.
And on a more personal level;
It just takes a little thought and willingness to change.
For example, as I have said in previous pages, it’s not exactly rocket science to work out the relationship between cheap, throw away clothing and oppressive sweat shops. The answer is simple look for the fair trade label.
In a world where we are all clamoring for more, remember and understand what this actually means
The poorest 40% of the world population accounted for 5% of global income. The richest 20% accounted for 75% of world income, and the richest 10% accounted for 54%
Again not rocket science to work out that if we have more than out fair share others will have less.
We all drink coffee, buy fair trade.
Stuck for Christmas presents for friends who have every thing? buy a goat for an African family
There is so much each and every one of us could do if only we could be bothered to make the effort. You don’t need to look very far, it’s all out there on the internet and that’s a place we all visit every day of our lives.
TO FINISH, A HAPPY STORY
http://www.africa.hu/
The story of Daniel, please go see this it is a story with a happy ending.
