Curious what life is like for 80% of the world?
An American at the US “poverty line” is among the richest 13 percent globally. America's poor need help, for sure, and they're in better shape than most people.
How does that play out across the world?
Photo left, kids in Kenya run off with my camera to take pictures of each other. This is my buddy Anderson, age 3, by the family's cooking hut. I couldn't survive, living as simply as he does.
- A UN study reports that the richest 10% of adults own 85% of the world's total wealth. The bottom half of the world adult population owns 1% of global wealth,[10] and discouragingly, the gap between rich and poor is widening.
Photo right, just down the path from where Anderson lives, the kids photograph a fellow as he brings wood for the kitchen fire.
This is Kenya's coastal region where they get some rain a couple of seasons each year. Even so, clean water is difficult to come by. The well in the photo background is brackish, and fresh water comes from just a few sources near here; often, you have to pay a vendor for it.
First World Heaven, Third World Hell:
- The great majority of the world’s population live on under $2.50 a day. Over 80 percent of humanity, more than 5 billion, live on less than $10 per day.
- The vast majority in the Third World live very differently than the working class of the First World. For example, the average working American lives on $87 a day.
- There are more people in India alone who make less than $0.80 a day than there are people in the United States. That's 100 people living on what one American has daily.
Just two hours inland from Mombasa (photo left), the forests are failing, the fields are too dry to produce crops. Villages are in decline as health issues and starvation take their toll.We've been given a couple of acres here to build a church/pre-school/community center. It's an opportunity to do a little work building up the community capabilities and resources.
There are so many opportunities to lend a hand, make a difference, be a brother to a fellow who's working so hard just to feed his family and perhaps give his kids a better future. Curious? Ask.
