Did you know that we are among the 10% wealthiest people in the world? Most all Americans fall into this category. We also use 86% of the world's resources which makes us seem more than slightly piggish. I especially hated to hear that 28,000 children die each day (ten million a year) due to starvation or preventable disease. As I hear these statistics I feel some resentment for the guilt complex that comes with it. On the other hand, I feel compelled to help however I can. I realize that that statistic may be suspect. How can you really know that this is so? Who counts dead babies in the 3rd world? There are so many remote villages. Statisticians probably can defend this from some sampling they have done somewhere. . . But I think we all know that there is a problem with starvation and preventable disease.
John Hatch started the Village Banking model of microfinance in 1984 while on a flight to Bolivia. He said it was the double bourbon that gave him the insight for this new idea in dealing with the poverty situation in the world. FINCA is the result of his idea and with other NGO's (non-governmental organizations) who do a similar service have reached 100 million of the world's poorest families. There are only 160 million left needing assistance. One of the interesting things he told us during the workshop last week is that the poorest of the poor who FINCA would like to serve will not come to them for help. They are scared of starting a business and having that responsibility. I feel their pain. I have the same fear. But that is for another blog. The point I would like to make here is that we have made excellent headway in solving the world's poverty problem and there is a goal by some to end all poverty by the year 2025.
The plan hatched to reach this goal by some former BYU student interns with FINCA calls for us to cut back on our consumption 1% and give $1 per day to their organization called ASAP. ASAP is an acronym for Alliance of Students Against Poverty. This would amount to one less soda or other treat a day. If only 2 million people would do this for 10 years they could reach their goal of raising 7 billion dollars to stamp out poverty. ASAP, which is just starting up, will research all of the current NGOs out there who are doing microfinance and support the most efficient ones with the money they raise. I like the idea. What do you think?
3 comments:
The wealth poverty thing is a difficult issue, not to belittle ASAP's asperations but even Jesus said "The poor ye shall have always". Lyndon Johnson was going to end poverty in our country in 1964, he even declared a War on Poverty. According to Charles Murray, a consultant to Reagan's administration and author of "the Bell Curve". After 20 years of beefed up welfare programs our poverty level in 1985 was still what it had been in 1965. So based on that extensive experiment, giving money to the poor doesn't seem to change things much, at least at the macro level. The FINCA idea is to lend money to the poor, where most banks tend to lend money to the wealthy. Another idea that has been proposed to get us out of the social security pyramid scheme would be to give every child born a $5,000 endowment that would be invested somehow for them, the thinking is that at age 25 or so the kid would have $20,000 to start out life with allowing him/her to build up some capital assets.
I think its a great idea--we should get rid of poverty somehow and if we have a little extra, we should make it our responsibility to help care for others.
At the same time, I am reminded of a quote by Spencer W. Kimball about how the Lord works from the inside out, "We would take people out of the ghettos, but the Lord takes the ghetto out of the people, and then they take themselves out of the ghetto." So I think education and missionary work are the most important ways to combat poverty. Like those poorest of the poor, some people simply don't have the motivation to make their situation better.
Money is a good way to temporarily fix things, but poverty will not disappear with $7 billion or $70 billion. Only when people have both some internal motivation and the means to do something about it (which is where the donations come in).
So, where do we send our $1 a day? How do we get in touch with ASAP?
Doesn't the cost of living just go up if we don't have any poor at the end of the spectrum? So it's basically just a relative thing. The poorest in america might get along quite nicely in cambodia...
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