Help Make Poverty History!
I’m taking a little break from your regularly scheduled blog posts to mark Blog Action Day. It’s a day where bloggers all over the world get together to talk about the big issues. This year the topic is poverty.
Every three seconds a child dies as a result of extreme poverty. More than a billion people around the world live in abject poverty, surviving on less than a dollar a day. So many more live beyond the poverty line, and many of these folks are in our own backyard.
When a situation seems this big, it’s easy to feel powerless. But there are things you can do. Here I’ve included ten simple steps we can all take to help make poverty history.
- Put off your next holiday until the end of the year. Then stay in one of the hotels participating in the Streetsmart campaign. Add $2 to your bill between November 10 to December 24, and the money will fund grassroots organisations helping the homeless.
- Attend the Stand Up & Take Action screening of The End to Poverty at the Chauvel Cinema in Paddington. It’s on this Friday October 17 at 6:30 pm and costs $20 for adults and $15 for concessions. E-mail sfernandes@acfid.asn.au for more details
- Stop putting it off and adopt a child through World Vision. And if you already have adopted a child, why not consider another?
- Volunteer to become part of the Make Poverty History campaign. E-mail sydney.mph@gmail.com to learn more about the Sydney meetings
- Clean out your wardrobe and donate anything that’s gathering dust to your local Salvation Army or St. Vincent de Paul. Ask your friends and neighbours and you could collect even a bigger haul!
- Play Free Rice! For every question you get right, the site will donate 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program
- Buy a white armband. All proceeds benefit the Make Poverty History campaign
- Give $5 to the next homeless person you see rather than just ignoring them
- Grab a copy of the latest Big Issue, or better yet, subscribe! This entertaining magazine helps homeless people participate in society
- Tell five people about this post so they can also see these simple steps we can all take to help end poverty!
Image source: Blog Action Day
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