Today I finished reading Radical by David Platt. Tonight I spent time reading about the famine and drought in the Horn of Africa.
I feel utterly overwhelmed; by all of my blessings, by the millions of people starving in Africa, by not knowing how to help or how to make a difference.
A few weeks ago I read these statistics about Ethiopia:
*Ethiopia is one of the four poorest countries in the world
*Annual per capita income is less than $160
*47% of the population lives below the poverty rate
*Population: 74.2 million
*Average Ethiopian woman gives birth to 5.9 children
*1 in 10 children die before their first birthday
*1 in 6 children die before age 5
*Malnutrition is the cause of more than 1/2 of all child deaths
*Average life expectancy is 48 for men, 50 for women
*1 physician for every 34,988 people
*One hospital bed per 4,141 people
*1 in 4 women dies in childbirth
*Only 50% of children attend primary school (K-3)
*Average class size in government schools – 85-100 children
*Overall literacy rate is 42%
*Estimated number of street children:100,000 nationwide
*More than half of girls ages 15-19 have been circumcised.
*Rape-15% among girls ages 10-24 in Addis Ababa
*It is Estimated that approximately 4.4% of the population in Ethiopia is infected with AIDS and that there are approximately 1 million AIDS orphans
I can't help but wonder what these statistics look like in America. Definately nothing like these.
1 comment:
I cannot wait for you to go to Ethiopia...the poverty is overwhelming, for sure. However, I feel like I learned so much from the people there. Americans may have a leg up materialistically (is that a word??), but I felt like we could learn a thing or two about relationships & focusing on what's important in life from them. It's hard to put into words, but my perspective about many things has changed. :o) And I think that's a good thing, huh!?
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