Global Poverty Part Three

Hello everyone!

This is my third and final blog post for my You and the World (YATW) project. Just a quick summary, if you haven’t read my previous posts. In my first post I introduced my issue of global poverty. I wanted to focus on a specific topic in my first blog post concerning global poverty which was global hunger and its effects on children and adults today. The UN Millenium goals were introduced, one of the goals being to decrease global hunger and poverty by half by 2015. An organization called Heifer International was also introduced in my first blog. They believe in something called the 12 cornerstones, which they accomplish by giving families in need heifers. In my second post I talked about my trip to Ecuador, and how I helped the families in need there, and what I experienced throughout this trip. In this post I am going to talk about my class presentation, an interview I had with someone who works in the Heifer International Organization, and how you can help.

My experience in Ecuador was one I will never forget. The joy and laughter when kids were given toys. The tears that rushed out of the eyes of the parents as they saw their children so excited and energetic for the first time in a long time. Words cannot describe the things I saw, but I wanted to share what I’ve done, I wanted people to see what I saw and become aware of this issue. I created a slideshow with pictures from my trip, and tried my best to describe each and every one of them to my audience. My goal was to inform people of the world we live in now, and that everyone can do something to make it better. I explained to my audience the purpose of my trip, which was give toys, food, and clothes to the families in need from 6 towns that were high up in the mountains. We drove trucks filled with all the items, and it took the entire day, from 7 A.M. to 5 P.M. to go to each town. My family does this every year around Christmas, and I was lucky enough to join them this year. I wanted everyone to know that while everyone might celebrate Christmas differently, my family and I wanted to give families we visited, a holiday experience that they might not have had before. My presentation goal was to not only inform people of what I did, but to encourage everyone that little things like what I did in Ecuador, can be a huge impact on someone or something else.

Click here for my presentation video, and to see my slideshow, click here.

Here I am giving my YATW

presentation.

Here is another picture of my

YATW presentation.

I became very interested in the Heifer International Organization and wanted to learn a little more about their work. I wrote an email to Donna Kilpatrick, the Livestock Manager of the organization, and asked her a few questions, which she answered with great detail. Currently there are 2.8 billion people who live with an income of less than two dollars per day. Heifer International has helped 20.7 million families, this brings 94.5 million men, women, and children they have helped thus far. Now, if one little organization can help this amount of people, imagine hundreds, even thousands of these organizations, poverty would be decreased greatly. Heifer International also has an educational program where people can visit their farm, and learn about what they do to help decrease poverty, and how they do it. They want to teach people about what it’s like to live in poverty and encourage them to take action. I personally went to their farm three years ago, where I spent three days in their educational program. I was given a tour and was able to experience the lower class lifestyles that so many people live in today. I recommend paying Heifer International a visit because it is an experience like no other. If you’d like to know more about my interview with Donna, please click here.

By now, I hope you’re asking yourself, What can I do? Well, if you are, then that is a great question. There are so many things you can do, such as, start an organization, organize a fundraiser, travel to a poor town and help the them build things that are needed. There are hundreds of things that can be done! There are people who need your help, whether it’s little help, or huge help, because remember, every little step, is one step closer in decreasing poverty. We want to help the UN get to their goal to decrease poverty by half between 1990 and 2015 with people who get an income of less than one dollar per day. Why help? Well approximately 2.6 million children die each year because of hunger-related causes. 2.6 million children who can’t grow up and accomplish their dreams. 2.6 million children who can’t experience the world like you and me. 2.6 million children who can’t laugh and play, and live life to its finest. In 2008, 9 million children died before their fifth birthday because of hunger and malnourishment. We’re losing our next generation because we can’t fill their stomachs. Our next leaders, doctors, scientists, they're dying. Parents are suffering and working hard everyday to provide for their family. Some die because of too much hard work, and some suffer seeing their children suffer. Is that convincing?  

Thank you, for reading, and I would like to thank Donna Kilpatrick for taking a little of her time to allow me to interview her, Ms. Dunn for guiding me through this entire process, and DuBois for taking pictures during my presentation.