EAST WEEK #27 ~ CARING FOR THE LEAST OF THESE…

When I was 18 I walked the streets of China and saw something I will never forget. I saw streets filled with disabled children begging for money. Some of them had no legs, others had cleft lips, and many were mentally or physically impaired. That image of children suffering has been stuck in my mind till this day. As a Chinese American who had grown up in middle class suburbia for most of my life, I was totally shocked to see what I saw when I walked the streets of my homeland, China. Yet, this shocking reality of deep poverty is a reality that billions of people must face on a daily basis.

More than one billion people in the world live on less than one dollar a day. In total, 2.7 billion struggle to survive on less than two dollars per day. Every year 11 million children die-most under the age of five and more than 6 million from completely preventable causes like malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia. 

In some deeply impoverished nations less than half of the children are in primary school and fewer than 20 percent go to secondary school. Around the world, a total of 114 million children do not get even a basic education and 584 million women are illiterate. 
The following are some basic facts on child poverty in our world today…

Facts on Poverty:

Child Hunger
•    Every five seconds a child dies because he or she was hungry
•    More than 110 million school-age children are not in school
•    6,000 children die every day because of disease-infested drinking water
•    150 million children in developing countries are malnourished
•    15 million children around the world have been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS

Poverty:
•    Extreme poverty is defined as living on less than $1.25 per day
•    1.4 billion people (one in four) live in extreme poverty
•    Extreme poverty is most common in Sub-Saharan Africa, SE Asia and Central America.

Lack of Water
•    1.1 billion people don’t have safe water and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
•    Dirty water and poor sanitation account for the vast majority of 1.8 million child deaths each year from diarrhea – almost 5,000 every day – making it the second largest cause of child mortality.

Human Trafficking
•    27 million – Number of people in modern-day slavery across the world
•    1 million – Number of children exploited by the global commercial sex trade, every year.

These statistics are sobering and alarming. The question is what can I do about child poverty and hunger? Sometimes we can watch the commercials on TV about world poverty and starving children, and we will switch the channel because we don’t want to face this reality in our world today. Or we may not want to know about these issues of suffering because we feel inadequate and helpless to help. But the truth is we can help, each of us in our own way…

The Bible says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

I believe it is God’s heart as our Heavenly Father to take care of every orphan and widow in this world. It is our obligation as human beings to love and help those in need. Why? Because everything we have in this life is a gift, and a gift is meant to be given. Whatever we have, whatever we don’t need, we should share it with those who are less fortunate. This is God’s heart and it should also be ours. Recently, I was able to use my resources to help start an orphanage in Beijing China for orphaned children with disabilities. I also do my best to give to organizations that are reputable for their social work, especially with disadvantaged children. Below is a list of different organizations you can look up on the Internet to give resources, volunteerism, and finances to help end child poverty.

I pray every day that God would end child poverty, hunger and illness. I believe if we all work together we can help make a difference in this world and bring a smile to the least of these.

Make a difference in a child’s life, support an organization below or find your own to pray, volunteer and give financially to.

God bless,

Jaeson Ma
www.jaesonma.com

Change.org (A Networking Site for Social Issues)
Co-Op America (Economic Action for a Just Planet)
Free the Slaves (Free the Slaves liberates slaves around the world, helps them rebuild their lives and researches real world solutions to eradicate slavery forever.)
The Freeze Project (A movement to bring awareness about social injustices via creative means)
Global Exchange (Global Exchange is a membership-based international human rights organization dedicated to promoting social, economic and environmental justice around the world.)
International Justice Mission (Legal Advocates for Justice Around the World)
JustOne (Foundation for Relief & Development on Issues of Poverty, Orphans, and Human Trafficking)
Love146 (Works toward the abolition of child sex trafficking and exploitation through prevention and aftercare.)
Oasis USA (Focuses on the poor and marginalized, especially children and youth, in an urban context and works irrespective of gender, sexuality, ethnicity and religion.)
Opportunity (Organization Helping People Get Out of Poverty through Micro-financing)
Salvation Army (Humanitarian Faith-Based Relief Agency)
Stop the Traffik (Abolitionists Coalition of Over 900 Organizations)
UNICEF (UNICEF was created with this purpose in mind – to work with others to overcome the obstacles that poverty, violence, disease and discrimination place in a child’s path.)
World Concern (Caring for AIDS orphans. Rebuilding homes after disasters. Fighting child trafficking. Providing business loans to poor women. Teaching men sustainable agriculture. Preventing HIV/AIDS. Planting trees. Digging water wells.)
World Vision (Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.)

Sources:
•    (Source: According to the U.S. Department of State’s 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report)
•    (Source: U.S. Department of State, The Facts About Child Sex Tourism: 2005.
•    www.unicef.org
•    US Census Bureau

For the Chinese version of the article please click here.