GFA World is Fighting Child Poverty

How many children are in poverty? UNICEF estimates more than 1 billion children are multidimensionally poor, lacking the necessities like nutrition or clean water, and it’s estimated that 356 million children live in extreme poverty worldwide.[1] There are various types of poverty and all of them are key factors in the fight against child poverty.

• Education Poverty is perhaps the most detrimental because education and literacy are essential to breaking out of poverty. In fact, literacy has been named a miracle cure to poverty, and education provides doors for children to break through the cycles of poverty.[2]
• Generational Poverty is when a family lives in poverty for two generations or more. Children who grow up in poverty are more likely to bring poverty into adulthood.[3] Unless something breaks through that cycle of poverty, generational poverty will continue into the future.
• Environmental Poverty revolves around water supply, disease from insects, drought and other environmental factors. When children are forced to journey for hours each day looking for water, it keeps them from school. That water is often contaminated and contains waterborne illnesses.
• Social Poverty is centered around people groups. For example, a particular people group may possess few rights or have no say in their lives. When a group is oppressed in this way, it is social poverty. Children are victims of this type of poverty. Not only do they have no rights as children, their parents don’t either, making breaking the cycle of poverty very difficult.
• Health Poverty keeps children out of school and adults out of work. Illness and disease is a perpetuator of poverty. Contaminated water is the catalyst for many illnesses among children as it frequently exposes them to waterborne illnesses.
• Economic Poverty is perhaps the most widely accepted. This is when children and their parents lack the money necessary for their basic needs like food, clothing and shelter.[4] When children and their parents are gifted with another way to make an income, such as livestock, tools or a sewing machine, their chance of escaping economic poverty increases!
• Spiritual Poverty is often described as a feeling of worthlessness or even despair. When there is no hope for living, children don’t even know how to hope for something better. God is the hope-bringer to our lives.