Membership Not Required

Poverty is a club of which no one would like to be a member. No matter where you are – Asia, Africa, South America – the uniform is eerily the same, as well as the decor, the lodging, the dialogue, the smell…

-Half of the world’s population lives on two dollars a day.

-Over one billion people live on less than a dollar a day.

-6% of the world enjoys 60% of the world’s wealth, while 94% splits the other 40%.

-Every day 30,000 people die from extreme poverty.

-Every 3 seconds a child dies from a preventable disease.

When an impoverished child lies down to a night’s sleep, what fills their dreams? Do they fly through skies of blue and try to touch the moon? Do they run barefoot in fields of grass? Is there a warm hug of stew and fresh bread, the laughing of their parents and friends? I hope they are not thirsty in their dreams. I hope there is not danger in their dreams. I hope for at least some time each night, they can feel safe and warm and clean and full…in their dreams.(Facts according to the World Bank.)