Facing the Truth

Poverty is a complex endeavor that the world isn’t finished with yet. Rural populations still disproportionately live with the hardships of extreme poverty, and thousands of children are lost each day due to preventable illnesses.

According to World Poverty

Statistics

more than 1.3 billion people around the world live on less than $1.25 per day. Even more—3 billion—exist on less than $2.50 per day. A third of the entire urban population is living in a slum, which are unsafe or unhealthy homes in a crowded city.

For every 1,000 children born, 41 will die before they turn five years old. Most under-five deaths are caused by preventable diseases like malaria, diarrhea, and pneumonia. The most common contributors to these diseases? Malnutrition, contaminated water, and poor sanitation and hygiene.

Globally  over 63 million children were not attending school in 2017. That’s tens of millions of school-aged children in the world who miss out on their education.

Of all the children living in extreme poverty, 75% live in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

Today, approximately 12% of the world’s total population is still practicing open defecation. When people defecate outside, human feces find their way into food and water sources, polluting and causing disease among people in those communities.

Rural populations around the world are four times as likely as urban populations to be drinking contaminated water. Access to safe water is a major marker of socioeconomic classes globally. Families who are drinking water infested with disease fall sick much more often, causing them to miss work, school, and spend their income on health clinic fees.

While 81% of urban residents have the ability to wash with soap and water, less than half of rural populations have the knowledge and resources to manage their own health in this way. The simple practice of washing your hands can reduce preventable (and in many cases, deadly) diseases by 40%. The behavior is the most effective and affordable hygiene practice that a community can undertake.

People in the United States are expected to live 18 years longer, on average, than those born in Sub- Saharan Africa. Life expectancy at birth is an important measure of the overall health of a country. It’s influenced by employment rates, quality of education, access to health care, and more.

About a third of the UN’s Least Developed Countries are also the least evangelized countries in the world.

These extreme levels of poverty are common throughout the world, and most of the sufferers live in countries where

the governments

cannot afford to resolve the problem. So the responsibility must rest with other organizations. Foundations have the resources and reach to approach such problems in a way that governments often cannot. Through the use of private donations, world hunger and poverty can gradually be ameliorated.





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