Monday, March 10, 2008

Why Voluntary Redistribution? PART I

First off, I don’t think I can even begin to understand poverty. Ron Sider asks the question to begin his book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, “Can overfed, comfortably clothed, and luxuriously housed persons understand poverty?” I believe the answer is a definitive “NO.” But I can try, and I desperately want to. Statistics don’t always sink into your brain or your heart (most statistics taken from Sider’s book):

Our hungry neighbors:

1.2 billion people live on $1 or less a day (that includes everything: food, water, clothing, housing, etc., etc.)

1.6 billion people live on $2 or less a day

840 million people are “severely undernourished” (the number is actually down in developing nations, but soaring in underdeveloped nations)

Due to poverty and lack of medical care, some underdeveloped countries have an 8% infant mortality rate – huge compared with the 0.7% of the United States

In some countries, the literacy rate is as low as 18%

1 billion people do not have access to safe water

2.6 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation

Each day 6,000 children die because of lack of clean water and sanitation

Undernourished children lack the protein that gives their bodies and brains what they need. Medical science has proven that severe malnutrition produces irreversible brain damage, especially in children. In 1999 there were 149 million malnourished children under the age of 5

Every day in Africa alone, 6,000 people die from the AIDS virus

Why voluntary redistribution? Because they need us to.

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