World Hunger and Poverty

I was recently contacted by Santo Purnama of CultureUnplugged.com about their non-profit film and documentary archive for social impact. I looked through their hunger and poverty section, finding many interesting videos. This one about micro-finance stood out to me in particular since micro-finance has intrigued me for a while:

Here are a few older posts from this blog about microfinance:

• Fighting Poverty $1 at a Time
• Gates Awards 15 Million to Grameen
• Nobel Laureate Says that Poverty Fight is Essential

For those of you not already familiar with the Free Hugs Campaign, I recommend you watch the following YouTube video. I bet it will make you smile:

I love it! It is entertaining and pleasantly funny to watch this random long-haired guy walk around with a sign offering free hugs. More seriously, I feel even a small, mostly symbolic gesture such as giving away free hugs can help alleviate the “social disconnectivity” so common in our current society, which represents the first step in coming together and actually building a better world for all. Millions of people have seen that video, and I assume it has inspired almost all of them.

On The Daily Show last night, John Stewart interviewed economist Jeffrey Sachs. Check it out:

I look forward to reading Jeffery Sachs new book, Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. Regarding the interview, I like that he empathizes the connection between poverty and wasteful, destructive militarism. Also, I like that he basically says that we can find practical and effective ways to end poverty and the underlying problems if we chose to do it, rather than ignore those problems and focus on throwing more and more resources into militarism. As Henry David Thoreau wrote, “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.”

Happy New Year! Check out this YouTube video about world hunger that I made yesterday:

Please post your comments on the video in this thread in the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.

The following video shows Tupac Shakur performing his song Brenda’s Got A Baby, which tells the story of a 12-year-old girl from the ghetto who has a baby that she cannot support. The song addresses teen pregnancy and the lack of support for impoverished teens from their families, the government, and society. Watch it:

I wish Tupac still lived today. He has many other songs that address poverty and other serious social and political issues.

Tupac holds the record as the highest-selling rap artist. Drive-by shooters shot Tupac 4 times on September 7, 1996, and as a result he died 6 days later at the age of 25.

The song appears on Tupac’s album, 2Pacalypse Now, which you can buy from Amazon.

You can discuss teen pregnancy and Tupac’s music about poverty at the Hunger and Poverty Forums. It’s completely free, and all viewpoints are welcome.

The following video shows glimpses of children around the world, with a song by Tim Janis, in support of CROP Hunger Walks. The song is sung by school children in Kenya.

Poverty & Hunger Facts:

• 18,000 children die everyday from hunger.
• Globally, over 1 billion children live in poverty.
• In the United States, 14 million children live in food insecure households.
• 21% of all children in the United States live in poverty.

Why do we allow this to happen, when we have enough resources for everyone to have food, clothes, and shelter?

A.R. Rahman’s English single “Pray For Me Brother” will be the UN’s anthem for its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) campaign.

Music has the power to inspire people. I hope this song inspires the world to increase the efforts to end poverty, hunger, and homelessness. Unfortunately, at the current pace, we cannot reach the MDGs.

Rather than mourn a good person’s death, it’s better to celebrate the life that they had lived. On today, what would have been the seventy-eighth birthday of the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I cannot bring myself to celebration. I cannot bring myself to happiness.

I am so happy that the great Martin Luther King Jr. graced our world with his messages of hope, justice, freedom, and peace. But, that happiness is overshadowed by my sadness over his premature death by assassination.

Why do the good die young? Why did Martin Luther King Jr. have to die before his time?

I have no answers to these questions.

I have included audio and video clips from some of Dr. Martin Luther King’s speeches and sermons (and a song by Common at the bottom):

The full version of Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech:

“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King, “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death[...] Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit. And go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism.” -Martin Luther King

“We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God’s world. And that’s all this whole thing is about. We aren’t engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God’s children. And that we don’t have to live like we are forced to live[...] We don’t have to argue with anybody. We don’t have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don’t need any bricks and bottles, we don’t need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, God sent us by here, to say to you that you’re not treating his children right. And we’ve come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda–fair treatment, where God’s children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.” -Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Clips:

Common – I Have A Dream:

This is a video for Common’s new song for the upcoming movie Freedom Writers. The clips are from Common, Talib Kweli, Matisyahu, the movie Freedom Writers, and a couple random Youtube clips.

What do you think?

Back in 1971, John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono let the world imagine a better world, with no need for greed or hunger. Watch the video of their song, Imagine:

Recently, A Perfect Circle has made a downbeat remix:

Unfortunately, I think the downbeat version fits our contemporary world more than Lennon’s original. It’s 2006, and 16,000 children die everyday from hunger while the rest of us roll out the red carpet for World War III. The world had more hope in Lennon’s time, but we lost our way and never brought the dream of the 50s, 60s and 70s to reality.

This short video quickly displays facts about hunger and poverty. At only one minute and fifteen seconds long, this enlightening video is a must-watch: