Poverty leads to orphans and homelessness.

• 150 million children live on the street.
• Action International says that by 2020 there will be 800 million homeless children.
• The UN says that the street children situation is one of the worst crises facing the nations of the world.
• This is a disaster

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” – Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 25, par. 1

Average Gross National Income for every man, women, and child in America is $35,060. World Development Bank, 2003.

• Of the 24 mostly Western Developed Nations (including NA, Western Europe, Australia & New Zealand etc.)  Population of 900 million, the GNI is $27,000 USD
• Compare this to the fact that 1.2 billion people live on under $1.00 a day and 2.7 billion people live on under $2.00 USD a day.
• 500 million people are hungry and another 500 million are so poor that they don’t consume enough food to render them productive.
• Because of poverty 33,000 children (mostly under-five-year-olds) die every day due to preventable diseases – diarrhea, measles, malaria, and malnutrition – that is more than one child dying every 3 seconds.
• 55% of all child deaths (17 million deaths a year) are just because the children are hungry.
• Poverty is at the root of most of that which contributes to 'children becoming at risk'.

City: Yangon
Project:  Dental & Medical Clinic
Partner:  New Life Foundation

This project will aim to address the fundamental needs to assist those in poverty. The perceived issue is a lack of income in a poorly run economic system. The aim is to eradicate poverty in the long term by developing businesses that employ, train, and develop people. Profitable businesses that provide goods and services for long term sustainability. The aim is also to develop small community medical and dental clinics and train Nationals to run them on an ongoing basis.

A medical clinic has been running in this community since 2010.  The current need for this community is a dental clinic. 

Basic dental equipment is needed for this clinic, either through cash donations, or the donation of a chair and equipment.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you can help bring healthy teeth and gums to this community.

City:  Yangon, Myanmar
Project:  Learning Centres
Partner:  Global Concern/Every Home for Christ

The poorest of the poor in Yangon are living in the wettest parts of the city with "housing"  built on stagnant slimey water.  The families don't have enough money to send their children to school, so this project is designed to bring the school to them.

Small bamboo and tin "community centres" are built in the community to be used as a school for the village children to be able to receive basic numeracy and literacy skills, allowing them to be able to go on to a government school if their family can afford it, or at least giving them these basic skills required for employment and life in general.

City: Tachilik, Myanmar
Project: Orphanage
Partner: Garden of Blessing
Number of Children: 20

The Tachilik orphanage was open to service the Wa resettlement region. In 2001 and 2002, over 150,000 (and possibly up to 250,000) Wa people were forced to move from their northern home along the Saween River region to the border of China within the Northern Shan State area to the lower regions along the Thai/Burma border. There has been much sickness, poverty, and fighting in this region, and there are many orphans.

Every day 5,760 more children become orphans

UNICEF and global partners define an orphan as a child who has lost one or both parents.

By this definition there were over 132 million orphans in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean in 2005.

This large figure represents not only children who have lost both parents, but also those who have lost a father but have a surviving mother or have lost their mother but have a surviving father.

Of the more than 132 million children classified as orphans, only 13 million have lost both parents. Evidence clearly shows that the vast majority of orphans are living with a surviving parent grandparent, or other family member. 95 per cent of all orphans are over the age of five.

City: Yangon
Project:  Orphanage
Partner:  New Life Foundation

Work commenced by a small group of dedicated people in South East Asia over a decade ago to care for the orphans in Yangon.

Over 300 children have been rescued, and now live in a loving environment where they receive their daily needs, medical care and education. Based in three different locations, they will be nurtured to become leading citizens within their respective regions.

Currently New Life has a rice paddy for sustainable growth. This will provide income, training and employment. To date, 44 acres is under crop, with a number of small crops grown in the off season.

Volunteers have also assisted in disaster relief, building medical clinics, building new housing and joining education teams.

Australians you can sponsor these children

City:  Yangon
Project:  Education Centre
Partner:  New Life

Currently there are no suitable environments for learning in this region of Yangon. This activity will provide a long term suitably built learning facility for decades to come.

The main objectives of this project are:

A) to increase educational standard in English/Burmese literacy and computer literacy in this community.
B) to establish a preschool facility for community children.
C) to develop a designated library area within the Educational Training Centre.
D) to increase the employment opportunities and thereby reduce poverty in this community.

Add your voice to Stop Human Trafficking through Stop the Traffik Australia

Warning: Some of the content of this article is disturbing - reporting treatment of trafficking victims.

What is human trafficking? According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), human trafficking is defined as, "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation."

Natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods can often come at the least expected time. Others, such as hurricanes and cyclones are increasing in severity and destruction. Typically, the poor are the worst hit for they have the least resources to cope and rebuild.

When poor countries face natural disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and fires, the cost of rebuilding becomes even more of an issue when they are already burdened with debt. Often, poor countries suffer with many lost lives and/or livelihoods. Aid and disaster relief often does come in from international relief organizations, rich countries and international institutions, but sometimes poor countries are still paying millions of dollars a week back in the form of debt repayment.

HIV/Aids
Of the 22 million people who have died of AIDS, 4.5 million of them have been children.

In 2006 there were 11 million AIDS orphans in the Sub Sahara. That is a staggering 10%, or one in every ten children is an orphan. This is twice as many as society can care for.

In South Africa, 50% of all the teenage girls who are now 15 years old, will be dead of AIDS in ten years.

Malaria
Around the world, 3.3 billion people are at risk of contracting malaria.

Tuberculosis
There were an estimated 8.7 million new cases of TB in 2011 (including 1.1 million cases among people with HIV) and an estimated 1.4 million deaths (including 430,000 people with HIV), making this disease one of the world's biggest infectious killers.

 

• Muslims in Myanmar have been denied citizenship, had their land confiscated, and have been compelled to provide forced labour.
• More than 10 Million Hindus have had to flee Bangladesh in the face of sustained persecution and periodic riots.
• 200 million Christians suffer torture, prison, and persecution for no other crime than that they call Jesus Lord.

• In the last decade alone, since the adoption of the CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD, more than 2 million children have been killed and more than 6 million injured or disabled in armed conflicts.
• War rape is so widespread as to be uncountable.
• In 1995 alone, 53 million people – one out of every 115 people on earth  -- were uprooted from their homes, and displaced within their countries or became refugees across borders.
• Women and children usually comprise 80% of these refugee populations.More than 1 million children have been orphaned or separated from their families as a result of war.
• Presently 300,000 children soldiers, some as young as eight, are exploited in armed conflicts and fighting someone else’s war.