With 1.4 Billion People living in extreme poverty, it can seem hard to know how our efforts will really make a difference. In this series of weekly video blogs, we share the stories of everyday people that we’ve met, who are doing things in their lives to fight extreme poverty.
From learning more about the issues, to talking to friends, buying fair trade products to making donations, volunteering overseas to telling our leaders what we care about, there are many little things that we can do that can make a real difference in supporting the world’s poorest people to lift themselves out of poverty.
Lisa, Marty, Missy Higgins, Brendan, Jen and Emmanuel are just six of the people we’ve met who are doing things to fight poverty. In the coming weeks you’ll meet dozens more like them, from a huge range of people – in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. Young people and older people. People who have given their whole lifetime to these issues, to those just starting out in small ways.To find out what you can do to help change the world right now, click here.
It felt strange to be celebrating last September when a press release landed in my inbox from UNICEF, proclaiming that there were just 8.8 million deaths amongst children under five in 2008.
At an individual level, every child’s death is a tragedy. That’s 8.8 million kids who won’t get to go to school, to play with friends or tease their siblings. That’s 8.8 million families wracked by the trauma of losing a child.
But, at a global level, it was good news. It’s good news because we’ve seen increasing numbers of births alongside decreasing numbers of deaths, not just in the last decade, but for most of the last sixty years.
You might recall a TV advertisement for Make Poverty History back in 2005 in which celebrities clicked their fingers, in recognition of the fact that a child died once every three seconds from preventable causes.
Well, that ad wouldn’t work anymore. 8.8 million deaths a year works out as one death every 3.6 seconds … or rounded up, once every 4 seconds. Falling at an average rate since 2000 of 2.3%, 1.6 million fewer kids died in 2008 than in 2000.
Countries all over the world are bringing down child mortality by increasing the number of kids immunised against diseases like Polio and Measles, making sure that more kids drink clean water so they don’t get diarrhoea, and making it easier and more affordable for even the poorest to see a doctor or nurse when their kids are sick.
We’ve built great momentum in reducing child deaths in recent years, not just reducing deaths, but reducing them more quickly. In the below clip, Hans Rosling from Gapminder explains how Tanzania is dropping child deaths faster than a country like Sweden ever did.
As we look towards the next decade, there’s still much to do. The vast majority of the remaining 8.8 million deaths are preventable. As a planet, we’re going to need to work smarter and harder to achieve the millennium development goal of reducing child deaths by 2/3 between 1990 and 2015.
To do this, we need to support the governments of poor countries to build strong health care systems that reach into even the poorest and most remote communities. This involves making sure that governments can pay for the essentials like nurses, health clinics and doctors. And, it involves them being able to make the infrastructure investments that improve health – water and sanitation systems, electricity, and communications networks. To afford this, these countries will need to prioritise health in their budgets, and in part, they’ll need to use foreign aid - which will comes largely from our governments.
And, if our governments are to make these investments with our taxes, they need our permission. As we emerge from the worst economic period since the Great Depression, our governments are looking to cut costs – and cutting money to kids in other countries is an easy option. So, if you care about seeing fewer kids die, make a commitment, tell your MP that you care, and ask what they’re doing to see it happen.
To learn more about children and extreme poverty, start here.
That’s the most often asked question that we get at presentations of 1.4 Billion Reasons. All of us want to support things that really work, but it’s hard to know what really changes.
So, we’ve started a weekly blog to report back on success stories in fighting poverty, the grassroots projects, campaigns and policies that we feel are really working. Each week you’ll get a story – with video where possible – that looks at how poverty is being overcome in communities all around the world.
To help us do this, we want to find out what you think success really looks like. Respond to the poll below, pass it onto your friends, and we’ll focus in coming weeks on sharing examples that demonstrate success as you see it.
And, if you’ve got examples of things that you think really work, post a comment below with your suggestions, or email us at enquiries@globalpovertyproject.com. To find out more on the issues that matter the most, click here.
