Poverty

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THINK

For a moment about how much money you spend in a year. How much do you spend at Christmas? How much do people spend on you? What do you buy? Why do you buy those things?

POVERTY FACTS

(Taken from one.org and Compassion US, taken from World Bank information and from The Guardian and 100people.org. Facts from 2015-2016, accessed January 2019).

  • 663 million people in the world lack access clean water
  • Hunger and malnutrition are the world’s greatest risks to health, more than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined
  • 795 million people worldwide are suffering from hunger and more than 2 billion don’t have the nutrition needed to thrive
  • Based on the poverty line of $1.90 a day, World Bank projections suggest that global poverty may have reached 700 million, or 9.6% of global population in 2015.
  • Eleven children under age 5 die every minute, and 35 mothers die during childbirth every hour
  • Every day, 800 women die from causes related to pregnancy, childbirth, or postpartum. Most maternal deaths occurred in developing countries
  • In 96 countries, around 1 billion children ages 2 to 17 experienced some form of violence in the past year
  • 0.7% of the world’s adult population control 46% of the total global wealth ($280tn as of 2017)
  • 70% of the world’s working age population account for just 2.7% of global wealth

IMAGINE

Imagine if the world we live in was shrunk so that the earth’s population added up to only 100 people. What would the world look like? Let’s find out..

  • 60 Asians; 16 Africans; 10 Europeans; 9 from Latin America/Caribbean and 5 from North America
  • 50 would be female; 50 would be male
  • 22 would not have adequate shelter from the wind and rain
  • 14 would have no toilets
  • 14 wouldn’t be able to read or write
  • 11 would be under-nourished

YOU ARE PRIVILEGED

If you woke up this morning healthy then you are more fortunate than the million in the world who will not survive this week

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pains of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world

If you have food in the fridge, clothes on your back and a roof over your head to sleep under, you are richer than 75 per cent of this world

If you or your family have money in the bank, in your wallet and spare change in the house, you are among the top 8 per cent of the world’s wealthy

REALITY

This is the reality of our world. There are more figures that should shock you. We have so much and yet our society says get more, grab more, make more money, more and more and yet it’s never enough.. There are lyrics in a hip-hop song that says this:

“Man eats man and dog eats dog, don’t matter if we need it we just grab what we want. A life of contentment? Yeah, that’s what they say – but money grabbing, power grabbing just ain’t the way. There’s another side of life that we need to take back, it’s about putting others first and not taking back. But we’re blinded by our selfishness, we choose not to see, as we disregard the world around the truth fades away..”

YOUR VALUE

What are your values? How can you help to make a change? Change is going to start with you and me. As Christians, we believe God put us in charge, to look after the world. The trouble is people rejected God, went their own way and have damaged the world. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. It’s time to make a change..

“I’m going set you straight about life, that’s right. Lock down to my words and keep it down lock tight. Too much strife in this life, people doing what they like. So it’s time to make a change, we’ve gotta fight for what’s right. Too many children dying, too many mothers sighing, too many people dying, cos we really ain’t trying… To set the world straight, it’s not too late, to spread peace and relate, not dissipate hate. Make a difference man, but you too busy with your life. Time to jacknife, turn over, re-learn and get it right… From your creed of selfish greed, you feed n breed, but see, believe, it’s like a disease. What goes around comes around, so man you better change, or the greed that you’re stealing is gonna turn into your chains..”