'The worst kind of violence'

We recently had a "poverty banquet" at which we drew numbers and were given either a real banquet or meager pickings (rice and beans). One of the professors provided the information featured below. It uses simple statistics to illustrate how fortunate we are.

    

If we could shrink the earth’s population to a village of 100 people, with all existing ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following.

There would be:

57 Asians

21 Europeans

14 people from the Western Hemisphere, both North and South

8 Africans.

52 would be female

48 would be male

70 would be non-white

30 would be white

89 would be heterosexual

11 would be gay

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world’s wealth

80 would live in substandard housing

70 would be unable to read

50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 would be near death

1 would be near birth

1 would have a college education

1 would own a computer

In Cambodia, mothers with children in their arms in their
canoes pull up to boats to beg. We are told they are
often Vietnamese living illegally on the Tonle Sap

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent. 

The following is also something to ponder. If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more fortunate than the 1 million who will not survive the week.

If you never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you can choose to attend, or choose not to attend, a religious meeting of your choice without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75 percent of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8 percent of the world’s wealthy.

If you can read this message, you are luckier than more than 2 billion people in the world who cannot read at all. 

Sources:

The Central Intelligence Agency WorldFactbook

The Information PleaseAlmanac   

The United Nations Human DevelopmentReport    

The World DevelopmentReport