The world hunger problem: Facts, figures and statistics:
In 2006, 854 million people in the world suffered from hunger and malnutrition, up from 852 million the previous year.
One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.
Every year 15 million children die of hunger.
It is estimated that one out of 6 elderly people in the U.S. has an inadequate diet.
About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes.
Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger, every 3.6 seconds!
Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children died from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could have been prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in two days.
For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years. The assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.
To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only $13 billion - what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.
Ok, I don’t know how this makes you feel but to me, this is absolutely ridiculous, totally unacceptable! Actually, it pisses me off!!! How can we allow this to happen? Maybe the government doesn’t care about life but it doesn’t mean we don’t. Let’s do something about it. Maybe we can’t save everyone but let’s save as many as we can! “But, what can I do”?
#1 Contribute – I’m not going to tell you who to contribute to, just pick someone that actually spends the money on feeding people and give something. You could save a lot more lives if you gave monthly.
#2 Spread the word – Forward this email onto as many people as you can because if everyone gives even $1 per week, it all adds up. I don’t know how it works but for $7, the Feed The Children organization can feed a child for a month!
#3 Write or email your government representatives – That this is unacceptable! We don’t need a $Gazillion space station or this pork belly project or that golf trip to the Bahamas, we need to save lives!
#4 Let your church officials know – That this is unacceptable! We don’t need new athletic equipment, we need to save lives!
#5 Get involved – If you want to do more, check out some of the Hunger or Poverty web sites and volunteer. Or better yet, start your own collection of food, clothing, etc and find a way to get it to the people that need it most.
We are so lucky, so blessed with our standard of living! Every charity is great but Hunger is something that we can definitely eliminate, “today”, if we really wanted to. Can’t we give back a little more? So I ask again, if you could save a child’s life, would you? Then do something about it and you will be rewarded! It’s not just in what we do that we will be judged, but also in what we fail to do.
Here are some additional stats if you are interested:
· The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world.
· Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion - a majority of humanity - live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people.
· 3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.
· The infant mortality rate is closely linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The U.S. ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality.
· Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.
· About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age.
· Malnutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death.
Are the governments of these countries doing all that they can to remedy the problems in their own countries? Obviously not, but again, it doesn’t mean “WE” can’t help as many of these people as we can!
