Today I woke up and did something new, well I should rephrase that and say I did something today I have not done in a long time. (I have to admit.) I read the mission of our practice, my mission, that I wrote, before my practice was what it is today, before what it will be tomorrow, before what it will be next year, and always moving forward.
When I look back years from now, here is what we will still be living by:
“Never forget we are in a powerful position. Not many people have our opportunity. Never forget our opportunity is great and rare and make every moment count. Live with gratitude and use our position to inspire others to reach their dreams, whatever they are, always.”
About 6pm tonight I had a decision, my toughest decision yet today to make. Either dent my sea of emails (that kept flowing in), or make an impact now. We all could have tons of excuses as to why we can’t commit to make our mark now- its 6pm and this person needs a reply, I have a 7am meeting tomorrow-these are all reasons I could have used. But never forget we are in a powerful position… I didn’t need to read the rest of my mission and value proposition, to myself, again. I looked up the World Affairs agenda for tonight.
I’ve passed by the World Affairs Council more times than I can count. Yet I have not stopped in, especially not on a workday Tuesday night. But why? An impact on myself, my education, about specifically, tonight, “Global Poverty, What Everyone Needs to Know” sounded intriguing.
A big cause of mine already is economic empowerment, many of you know, and particularly financial literacy for children, women, young adults, and professionals (well really everyone – I’m truly happy to help impact anyone who is of high integrity and high quality). So just how great is this cause, and where are the main areas it comes from, I wondered.
A quick Google search on child poverty in specific pulled up one alarming statistic: of 35 developed countries the US has the highest rate of poverty second only to Romania (with all due respect that doesn’t say alot considering the history). One out of every five American children live in poverty.
Tom Nazario, founder and president of The Forgotten International was the speaker tonight, and here are just a few of his points:
160,000,000 women are missing in Southeast Asia. (Yes that is 160,000,000- I had to correct myself when I was taking notes I dropped down the zeros after copying them verbatim then realized I did copy them correctly- there are 7 0’s, plus two more digits to communicate factually the number of women missing in Southeast Asia.)
Yes- women typically live longer than men, most people know, yet women are currently outnumbered by men worldwide.
Women are missing for no reason any more significant other than because they are women, and thereby viewed as less tough and strong than men, young boys in particular in this case. In SouthEast Asia, it is extremely common for example after the ultrasound of a baby to determine the child’s sex these days, and use that information to abort the pregnancy if it’s a girl, and take further measures to eliminate the lives of girls. This is today, not last year, and not thirty years ago. This is right now.
Right now 19,000 children die every day for no reason other than the fact they are too poor to live.
As it stands 55% of the poor, those who are under the baseline of poverty, currently live off of the land or sea, and these 40,000,000 people feed over 50% of the population with the food they produce.
I can’t help but beg the question – what are we all going to do as climates continue to effect our environment and cut into our crops, lakes and other bodies of water continue drying up, sea plants such as water hyacinth continue to invade and take over, and essentially make sealife unavailable all together for fishermen access, cutting off food supplies, and essentially mass migration will happen and go where?
Right now, 1/3 of the world population is considered “moderately poor-“ that is billions of people who are making less than around $2 per day. 1/6 of the world population (still over a 1 billion people, that is 1,000,000,000 people) live off less than $1 a day.
Do you ever wonder what these 1,000,000,000 people are doing every day, what their lives consist of?
Here’s a personal story Tom spoke about: A single mother with kids was living in a home somewhere, let’s say anywhere, it was some country, a nice home, with lots of land, and a cattle, one cattle, that was all she needed. One night her cow was attacked, and by the time she woke up it was dead and its carcas was being devoured by the animals and birds out front of her home. There was nothing she could do to stop it from being devoured. She watched it devastated, and there was nothing that she could do.That was it, everything. In those moments while the wildlife was eating her cattle out front of her home, a nice home especially relative to the area, and she was watching everything she had go down the drain.
There’s multiple key roles that one cattle played: That cattle produced the milk for her youngest infant. The leftover milk she used to generate some income. If her landlord ever tried to take her home from her, she felt secure because she would just sell her cattle (she had to stay in the home, her family lived off the crop). If the crops had a bad year, she could sell the cattle, make some money, good money, or even use it to feed her family. Her youngest infant depended on that cattle for more than just milk, it was all her nutrition, and so did her other small children. By losing that one cattle, she ended up losing her youngest infant. The infant, her infant, died, from malnutrition. Nothing else. Malnutrition from the lack of that one cattle caused her infant child to die. This woman lost much more too you see, she lost everything, she lost everything from that one cattle. If her landlord came for her home, she had nothing to barter with, if crops were bad one year she had no cattle left for the children to eat, at this point you get to see how substantial of an issue this one cattle is, and there’s tons more women like her, you could continue as to why a cattle is so important to so many.
Her story begs the question: how much does a cattle cost? As little as $150. We can start an organization or find an organization already established – and each one of us donate a cattle to the cause, even just one cattle can save a life, and sustain life for many. Cattle for a Cause. (Did anyone think of that?) We could think about it as we are in a powerful position. Not many people have our opportunity. Never forget our opportunity is great and rare. (We have only have 3% of the world’s population of children, and one of every second child born in this world, that is one out of every two children, is currently in poverty and will continue to live in poverty.) Our opportunity is rare. Make every moment count. Live with gratitude, and use our position to inspire others to reach their dreams whatever they are, always.
I know a great person who I’m sure could help make our cattle dollars, cattle.
Is this important to you? If so, please visit http://www.theforgottenintl.org/donate.html
What’s your impact? Please tell us what you did. Together, let’s move mountains.
Want more information?
Check out this Washington Post article, these stats from various sources, more information about the issue of the water hyacinth and drought particularly in Lake Victoria, and this video.
Thanks, #impact
