CAROL’S SUMMARY: Poverty is a world-wide issue. There are1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as not having enough income to meet the most basic human needs (food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, health care, or education). One half of the world’s population lives on $2 US dollars a day. What implications does this have for us in an abundant country like America? What responsibility do we have to help the rest of the world with their issues of poverty, water sanitation, air pollution, etc. ? If we think effectively about these problems, how will the world benefit and how will be benefit here in the US?
Questions to consider:
1. How can you help fight poverty?
2. What would it be like if you lived on $2 a day?
3. What excesses are in your life currently?
ARTICLE:
When are we going to do something about global poverty?
By PETER SINGER
Reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty throughout the world is clearly one of the great moral challenges of our time. Although the issue is by no means absent from what we study and teach, as educators in the United States we appear to be falling short in the task of ensuring that our students are adequately informed about world poverty, its consequences, and the ways in which it can be reduced. Is it possible that some of the reluctance to deal with the topic stems from the fact that it may have uncomfortable conclusions for our own lives?
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