Shannon Daley-Harris - Our Day to End Poverty: 24 Ways You Can Make a Difference

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Our Day to End Poverty

24 Ways You Can Make a Difference

Shannon Daley-Harris and Jeffrey Keenan
with Karen Speerstra

BERRETT-KOEHLER PUBLISHERS, INC.
San Francisco
a BK Currents book

Our Day to End Poverty

Copyright 2007 by Jeffrey Keenan
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
235 Montgomery Street, Suite 650
San Francisco, California 94104-2916
Tel: (415) 288-0260, Fax: (415) 362-2512
www.bkconnection.com

Ordering information for print editions
Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the Special Sales Department at the Berrett-Koehler address above.
Individual sales. Berrett-Koehler publications are available through most bookstores. They can also be ordered directly from Berrett-Koehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-7626; www.bkconnection.com
Orders for college textbook/course adoption use. Please contact Berrett-Koehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-7626.
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Berrett-Koehler and the BK logo are registered trademarks of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data are available from the Library of Congress.

First Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-57675-446-7
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-57675-526-6
IDPF ISBN 978-1-60994-417-9

2007-1

Cover photograph: Stockbyte/Getty Images. Cover design by PemaStudio. Interior design and composition by Gary Palmatier, Ideas to Images. Elizabeth von Radics, copyeditor; Mike Mollett, proofreader; Medea Minnich, indexer.

Dedication

To our children, Micah, Sophie, Ted, Gabe, Meghan, Mollie, Destiny, Jefferson, Joel, Nathan, Julia, and Schuyler, and children all around the world, with hope and determination that they will one day wake up in a world without poverty.

Preface

Not long ago the New York Times ran a front-page article about child labor as seen through the eyes of a six-year-old African indentured servant. He lives far from his family and is roused from a dirt floor to work long, hard hours, dragging a heavy wooden oar nearly his own weight and paddling and bailing out the leaky fishing boat of his master, who deals out beatings but little food. I thought about every six-year-old I knew when, out of earshot of his master, the little boy whispered to the reporter, I dont like it here.

What was equally powerful was the response to the article, as readers wrote to the Times and expressed their frustration that the article didnt tell them what they could do to help. Wrote one reader who wept over the article, There are moments when there is value in simply feeling the deep pain of anothers situation. But in an age when most of us already feel powerless about what happens in the world, a little bit of guidance toward actionanything to hang on towould have been both kind and potentially helpful for all. Our Day to End Poverty: 24 Ways You Can Make a Difference is a book for all of us who know that there is poverty and suffering in our world and who want to know what we can do to help. This isnt a book to convince you to care about global povertywe trust that you already do. This is a book for those of us who have felt hopeless or helplessa book to show what each of us can do to make a difference.

Our Day to End Poverty invites us to look at every day and begin thinking about poverty in new and creative ways. Inspired by the landmark bestseller 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth, this book offers scores of practical, doable (although not always simple) actions anyone can take to help eliminate poverty.

Each chapter helps connect our daily experiences to those of people around the world. Most of us begin our day by eating breakfastso the first chapter focuses on addressing world hunger. We might then take the kids to schoolwhat can we do to help make education available to all? In the afternoon we tackle our e-mail correspondence or text-message our friendshow can we ensure access to appropriate technology that can become a route out of poverty? In the evening we brush our teeth and fill a glass with waterwhat can we do so that everyone has access to clean water?

In the year 2000, world leaders met and committed to eight United Nations (UN) Millennium Development Goals to end poverty in our lifetime and to cut extreme hunger and poverty in half by 2015, along with other key progress on poverty-related problems. The twenty-four chapters in this book show how each of us can contribute to these ambitious but achievable goals to improve the lives of people around the world.

These chapters look at a range of poverty-related issues both in the United States and worldwide, balancing what we can do at home and what we can do farther away. This isnt an either/or, us-and-them problem. This is about all of us because we are all in this together. We live together on one planet, and what affects our brothers and sisters in one region affects us all.

You can read this book straight through, as though were spending one long day together, starting in the morning and ending at night. Or start with a topic you care deeply about, whether its hunger, education, or health care. Maybe youll just pick up the book and flip it open to see what difference you could make that day. It is written so that each chapter can stand alone, chock-full of actions you can take to learn more, contribute, serve, and make changes in the way you live.

You may already be wondering, Am I supposed to be taking an action every hour of every day? How could I possibly do all these actions? Im overwhelmed! Dont worry; you arent expected to do something every hour or even every day. Thats why there are so many choices: so you can choose what is right for you and your life.

You can do some of these actions on your own, or you can team up with other people. Its up to you. One action today may lead to other actions tomorrow. This is a step-by-step process. Who knows where it will lead?

In the words of Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Childrens Defense Fund, If you dont like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.

Will we? Nelson Mandela, referring to the UN Millennium Development Goals, said, Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that great generation.

If we rise to the challenge, working together, one day six-year-olds across our globe may declare aloud, I like it here.

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