Ways You Can Help End Poverty
Worldwide, 736 million people live in extreme poverty, earning $1.90 a day or less. These families often struggle just to put food on the table and suffer from a myriad of poverty-related issues. For example, they often lack proper education, proper health care, proper sanitation, and proper drinking water. There are numerous ways you can help end poverty and alleviate the suffering of people in need.
One way to help people in need is by giving of your time or money to organizations making a difference in the lives of the impoverished. GFA World, for example, empowers people in need in places such as Asia and Africa to improve their lives and break the cycle of poverty. There are various ways you can help people through GFA World, including sponsoring a child, sponsoring a national missionary, and giving income-generating gifts such as those offered through GFA World’s Christmas Gift Catalog.
Even small gifts can have a significant impact. The monetary value may not seem like much, but that gift can help transform an individual life, which has immeasurable value.
The World Bank’s Ana Revenga said to see a decline in world poverty, “What’s needed is economic growth that improves the income-generating opportunities of the poor.” GFA World empowers this growth through individual families and communities. They do so through literacy programs and vocational training as well as income-generating gifts such as sewing machines, goats, chickens, cows, fishing nets and tool kits.
GFA World also helps impoverished people gain access to health care, clean water and sanitation facilities, which helps improve people’s overall health and earning potential. Through GFA World’s Child Sponsorship Program, kids in need gain a solid foundation for life that empowers them to overcome the poverty that has been entrenched in their families, giving them hope for a better future.
You can also help raise awareness for the plight of the world’s poor, rallying support from others to multiply your impact. In 1992, the United Nations declared October 17 as the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. Every year, people from various backgrounds gather on this day to show solidarity with the poor, whose suffering is considered a violation of human rights.
Through your own social connections and interactions, you can help inform people in your social network of the issues impoverished people around the world struggle with and raise support to help people in need. If you’d like to raise funds for GFA World, for example, you can start a myGFA campaign, through which you can raise support via various creative avenues such as bake sales, bikeathons or other means. There are also online sites such as GoFundMe that facilitate fundraising.
This is just a glimpse of how you as an individual can help people entrenched in poverty. You can also visit gfa.org/get-involved to learn about other ways you can partner with GFA World to help people in need.
1 “Poverty.” The World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview. Accessed August 5, 2021.
2 Frykholm, Amy. “Ending extreme poverty: Economist Ana Revenga.” The Christian Century. https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2016-05/ending-extreme-poverty?CID=POV_TT_worldbank_EN_EXT. June 2, 2016.
3 “Ending Poverty.” United Nations. https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/ending-poverty. Accessed October 19, 2021.