Blog Action Day ‘08 – Every 3.5 Seconds
This post is a part of Blog Action Day 2008, which attempts to change the conversation for one day to an important subject that affects our world. In 2008, that subject is poverty.
Every 3.5 Seconds…
…a person somewhere around the world dies of hunger. That adds up to more than 25,000 people every year, that like killing the entire crowd at the Wizards stadium for 2 weeks. However, hunger is not the real core problem here, it is simply the symptom. We’ve got to hit the root cause, which happens to be poverty.
There are plenty of great organizations around the world already doing this and I think it’s best left to the private sector to work on this problem, but there certainly are some interesting ideas.
Kiva – What in the world is it?
Kiva is a non-profit organization that allows people from around the world to make micro-loans of just a few hundred dollars or sometimes even less to aspiring entrepreneurers who currently live in poverty. The website boasts a payback rate of more than 95%, which is astonishing considering the apparent high-risk situtions to which the money is loaned.
9:23 am on October 15th, 2008
I love kiva. I am currently unable to make a donation though, so i put up its banner on my blog (as well as that of freerice and goodsearch).
I saw this post via the front page of blog action day. It’s great that you’re participating.