I recently was asked to join a group of worldwide bloggers in a fight against poverty by participating in Blog Action Day 2008. The idea is that today, October 15th, across the globe, millions of bloggers will be raising awareness about the worldwide poverty problem.

Now, I live in a pretty upscale part of the country. However, I come from Brooklyn, NY, and I have seen my share of poverty. Besides all the local Projects, my Father taught for over 15 years at the Jim Thorpe school in Brooklyn. This school was the last line of schools before they kicked you out permanently. It was filled with poverty stricken families who had turned to crime mostly to survive.

I also worked as a door to door window salesman in good ol’ Washington D.C. during my college days. Let me tell you, canvasing through the ghettos of D.C. definitely opened up my eyes. I met some of the nicest people in the world, and they did not have a dollar.

Another time, for my confirmation, I went into NYC and fed the homeless. Besides the angry people turning back free sandwiches because they were not homeless as I had assumed, it went pretty well. Most of the poverty stricken people were happy to grab something to eat, although a few were surprisingly picky over the selection. ‘What kind of cheese is it?’, one homeless man asked me.

However, until yesterday, I was never really aware of the worldwide stats about poverty. Here is what I found (source)…

• 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.
• 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).

Needless to say, I was pretty shocked at those numbers. However, it did not stop there…

Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.

At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

According to UNICEF, 26,500-30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

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.

Number of children in the world -2.2 billion ; Number in poverty – 1 billion (every second child)

For more information, you can view the facts here.

Now, being that there is such a vast part of the world that I do not come into contact with on a daily basis, I believe it is easy for me to go about my everyday and just change the channel when I hear something sad on the news. However, after reading these facts, only one thing is for certain…

WE MUST UNITE & TAKE ACTION!

I am not going to tell you how. There are a billion and one ways to help out with poverty, as a quick Google search will show you. What I will do instead, is tell you what I am going to do.

The best site that I came across is called ‘End Poverty 2015 Millenium Campaign‘. Here is a blurb from the about page: