“It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” – Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Over a billion people across the globe live on less than a dollar a day, placing them in extreme poverty. Moderate poverty is defined as those living, on $1 to $2 a day, leaving a total of some 2.8 billion people, almost half the world’s population, living in poverty. We live in a society that claims it will not tolerate violence, but we let this injustice continue to plague and haunt the most vulnerable…it is time we took a stand and fought for the smallest of victims, that we invested in and worked to protect their future.
Every year at least 6 million children die from malnutrition, or malnutrition related causes every year, but there are low cost alternatives that could curb the number of deaths. The correlation between poverty and malnutrition is obvious to many, yet with solutions in our hands, millions of children still suffer needlessly. Poverty is more than just hungry children, it is the economic instability of whole communities, entire nations, and a cycle that is too often left to continue generation after generation. Poverty is most often directly or indirectly exacerbated by war and conflict, and these conflicts bring with them corruption and a multitude of other hindrances that work to keep those in poverty, as well as those on the edge of poverty, in poverty. In a world where corruption runs rampant, trade is a necessity of survival, and natural disasters have only grown, escape from poverty has become even more turbulent. hile food aid is an immediate need, it cannot be the end of the solution if we are to find sustainable ways out of poverty. What developing nations need is peace and stability, and this needs to be the number one resolution on the international agenda, if we are going to heal the wound of poverty.
