15 October 2008

Someone else's life

According to UNICEF, one billion children in the world live in poverty. That's half of the world's population of children.

My childhood was full of fictional books about kids like me trying to get by: THE BOXCAR CHILDREN dived into dumpsters to furnish their house, while Dicey tried to scrape together $100 to take care of her siblings in Cynthia Voigt's HOMECOMING. I thought these kids were cool in their resourcefulness, but I never really thought about the implications of homelessness -- it was just a game to me.

I don't know what it was like to grown up in poverty and I'll never truly understand what that is like. But I can seek out books that will expose me to those lives like Adrian Nicole Leblanc's RANDOM FAMILY and David Simon's THE CORNER. The latter book so moved me I started volunteering around the corner after I finished reading it. But even if reading a book doesn't spur you to do something about poverty in your backyard or in a faraway country, the onus is on you to expose yourself intellectually to the problems of others -- whether it's reading about microfinancing as a means of empowerment or a few plucky orphans with chipped plates.

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This post was part of Blog Action Day, an online initiative to get bloggers to focus on one issue for a day. To read more entries, visit BlogActionDay.org.

Some of my picks:
It Doesn't Have To Be About The Money [Escape From Cubicle Nation]
My Poverty-Fighting Superheroes [Wise Bread]
Donate Your Piracy Savings To Reduce Poverty [TorrentFreak]
How To Make Yourself Happier During The Economic Crisis [Gretchen Rubin/ HuffPo]



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