By Jessica Singh
SYLP student
Jessica Singh
Global poverty is on the rise because food prices are increasing. It is estimated that more than 100 million people may fall into poverty because of the food price increase. More than 3 billion people in the world live on less than $2.50 each day. And more than 22,000 children die every day due to not having enough money to buy food, and more than 200 million children are undernourished. Poverty affects more than 1 billion children in the world.
Poverty can affect education because children might not have enough money to pay for school. Poverty also leads to a lack of medical care. We can help those in need by donating money to foundations like UNICEF, Red Cross, and IPA (Innovations for Poverty Action). Donated money is used to help those who don’t have enough funds to buy necessities like food, clothes, vaccinations, and water filters, among other things.
You don’t necessarily need to donate money. You can also make an impact by helping the nonprofit organizations by volunteering. Volunteering doesn’t mean that you have to go to third world countries. Volunteering can happen locally. You can help to make food or hand out food at the local homeless shelter, or you can hold fundraisers to earn more money to help those in need.
There are more than 2 million homeless people in the United States and 49 million Americans who struggle to put food on their tables. You can also help by informing others about poverty around the world and get them to also help out by donating clothes and shoes that we don’t use any more to give to the poor. Organize a group to help make food for those in need or grow fruits and vegetables to donate, so that those in need can have more healthy food to eat. Another way to help is to write to Congress and advocate for those living in poverty.
More than 1.1 billion people do not have access to a clean water supply, and of those people, 400 million are children. Because of this, millions of people are becoming sick due of unsafe drinking water. We can help by donating water filters or money, so that those in poverty can drink water without fear of getting sick. You can also help by paying micro-payments, which means that you’re paying a small amount of money each month or day to a person of your choice.
These payments can be used to help providing education, vaccinations, food, and clean water. These payments can also help people to get out of poverty. Another great thing about micro-payments is that some of the money can go to the person’s bank account, so that if they have an emergency, like a health issue or their home is destroyed, they can use that money to help themselves.
Micro-payments are easy to do. They now have apps for your phone, so that it can be done quickly and easily. We can all make the world a better place, so let’s start by helping those who don’t have enough money to buy food and other essentials. (end)
Editor’s note: This story was written by a Summer Youth Leadership Program student, not a Northwest Asian Weekly staff member.