What Could You Give Up To Live On Less?

Fast From Food — Eat just one meal a day of beans and rice or some other simple meal. Don’t eat fast food or eat out all week. Take your lunch to school or work.

Fast Financially — Live on less than $10/day, like 83% of the world’s population.

Fast From a Guilty Pleasure — Give up something you normally pay for every week (i.e. coffee, sweets, soft drinks, movies, etc.) and save the money to donate on Sunday.

Clean Out Your closet — Donate the clothes you don't need to a charity.

Use Less Gas — Try to get by on less driving/gas usage (i.e. carpool, or walk fom store to store when you run errands).

Experience Life Without Electricity — Live like you were on the African continent without electricity. When the sun goes down, it’s time to go to bed.

Live Like Your House is Smaller — For one week, try using just one bathroom for your whole family. Or, try to cook, sleep, work and play in just one room.

Unplug From Technology — Give up electronics, TV, smart phones, video games, etc. for an evening and hang out as a family.

Put Yourself in the Shoes of the Poor and Needy

Whatever you decide to do - whether it is all week or for one day - the goal is for you to try to put yourself in the shoes of the poor and needy around the world. Be praying for them all week, and be thankful for all of your many blessings.

Did You Know?

Housing

• 2.5 billion people rely on biomass – firewood, charcoal and animal dung – to meet their daily energy needs for cooking.
• Approximately half the world’s population (3.2 billion people) live in cities/towns and 1 out of 3 urban dwellers live in slum conditions.

Food

• 800 million people are “chronically hungry,” which means they fail to receive the daily minimum number of calories/day to sustain healthy growth.
• Approximately 30% of all children in developing Third World countries are underweight or suffer stunted growth.
• Millions of women/children spend their entire day collecting water and/or firewood.
• Of the 2.2 billion children in the world, more than 1 billion live in poverty.

Finances

• 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.
• According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty.

Education

• 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not enrolled in school in 2005.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
• Water-related illnesses result in the loss of 443 million school days each year.

Health

• An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.
• Every year there are 350-500 million cases of malaria, with 1 million fatalities (Africa accounts for 90% of all malarial deaths and children account for more than 80% of malaria victims worldwide).
• 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water.
• 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
• Some 1.8 million children die each year as a result of diarrhea/dehydration.
• Worldwide, 10.6 million children die before the age of 5 (same child population as found in France, Germany, Greece, and Italy).

For the 1.9 billion children from Third World countries, there are:

• 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
• 400 million without clean water (1 in 5)
• 270 million without access to health services (1 in 7)
• 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized.
• 15 million children are orphaned due to HIV/AIDS

Other Facts and Figures:

The Rich-Poor Gap - Analysis of long-term trends shows the gap between the richest countries and the poorest countries was about:

• 3 to 1 in 1820
• 11 to 1 in 1913
• 35 to 1 in 1950
• 44 to 1 in 1973
• 72 to 1 in 1992

Global Spending - Consider the global spending priorities in 1998:

• Cosmetics in the U.S. $8 billion
• Ice Cream in Europe $11 billion
• Perfume in Europe/U.S. $12 billion
• Pet Food in Europe/U.S. $17 billion
• Business Entertainment in Japan $35 billion
• Cigarettes in Europe $50 billion
• Alcoholic Drinks in Europe $105 billion
• Military Spending worldwide $780 billion

Basic Social Services Cost - As compared to what was estimated as “additional costs” to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries:

• Basic Education for All $6 billion
• Basic Sanitation/Water for All $9 billion
• Basic Health/Nutrition $13 billion

*all derived from “Poverty Facts and Stats” found at www.globalissues.org.

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