How many of us have called ourselves poor? We sit back at the end of the day, moaning about all of the things that we don’t have as we enjoy our comfortable homes, nutritious food, watching TV and surfing the Internet. Sure, we may not have everything that we want, but we certainly have everything that we need to survive.
I will be the first to admit, the “p” word is dropped around here quite often.I find myself constantly saying “If we weren’t so poor, we would go here” or “Yeah, if we weren’t poor, I would buy you that.” This is a habit that I need to break myself and my family of, because realistically, we are well off by comparison.
While we may not have all of the extras we want and some months we have to rob Peter to pay Paul, after looking at some of the statistics on GlobalIssues, I felt ashamed that I had belittled the struggles of others by claiming a status that is far from my own. Take a look at what is the reality of poverty:
- More than 80% of the world’s population lives on less than $10 a day.
- 1/3 of the world’s children does not have adequate shelter.
- 1/4 of the population lives without electricity.
- 1.1 million people live without proper access to clean water
- 2.6 million people do not have basic sanitation
- 790 million people in the world are malnourished
After reading that, it makes you wonder what it would take to give all of these people the basic necessities and comforts that we all take for granted every day. According to the information given on that site, it would only at 40 billion dollars to provide food, water, sanitation, and basic health care for those who are currently doing without. Compared to the 780 billion dollars spend on military efforts worldwide, this seems like pocket change.
While we cannot all afford to feed the world, there are many organizations that are working to help correct these social issues and eradicate poverty across the globe. The Global Fund is one of these organizations and is working to combat many of the diseases that are rampant among those in underdeveloped countries. If you would like to donate to The Global Fund, you can do so through the link below or you can donate to your own favorite charity that works to combat poverty and helps to create a better life for all of the world’s inhabitants.
