BBC Pause for Thought – One Day’s Wages

By admin on January 6, 2010 • ( 0 )

The third of this week’s pause for thought on BBC Radio 2 covers just how one day’s wages can be all it takes!

Transcript from today’s PfT (agreed with the producer):

Just one day’s wages can be all it takes!
We get up, we go to work, we go home, we crash out and we go to bed again. Somewhere in there we also eat! It’s a daily grind which tends to distract us from so much as we concentrate on getting by, particularly in these dark days of winter. Helping a neighbour de-ice their car’s windscreen can seem a big deal, let alone helping to tackle world issues such as poverty, violence and exploitation that too often face us in the news.

Think of it:

25,000 children under the age of 5 die each day due to poverty-related causes.
Nearly 900 million people in the world do not have access to clean water.
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
Many in our world spend hours walking many, many miles a day – often barefoot – to collect water, food or to get to their nearest school.

I remember once meeting a Peace Corp volunteer in the United States who told me about her visit to a remote village in Kenya and how the people there looked at her shoes in wonder.

The scale of these and many more issues can simply seem insurmountable to us.

Yet charity, as they say, begins at home. Recently, I came across an international movement which encourages people to donate a day’s wage to help end global poverty. That’s about nought point four percent of an annual salary. It’s a simple idea. Yet it could make such a difference to the lives of so many in this world.

There’s a Sikh saying: “The earth is a garden, The Lord its gardener, Cherishing all, none neglected.”

So next time you’re in the car heading to or from work with the weight of the world on your shoulders, listening to the news on the radio and feeling powerless to help, why not set that single day’s pay aside? Strangely enough, it may be just the thing you need to lighten the load and give a fresh perspective on the daily grind.

My Original article is here:

Our daily grind tends to take us away from helping to free others. Freedom from poverty, slavery and exploitation tends to unfortunately drop in priority as we are so tied-up with surviving and investing in personal or associated family futures.

One of the wonders of humankind is the potential to be innovative. Recently, I came across One Day’s Wages. ODW is an international movement dedicated to ending extreme global poverty. The figures quoted on their website are shocking and staggering:

25,000 children under the age of 5 die each day due to poverty-related causes.
Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war.
Nearly 900 million people do not have access to clean water.
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

These are all challenges for us. When we sleep at night we hope for a good nights rest. However, we forget about those that have to walk miles to go to school, many in bare feet. I remember meeting a Peace Corp volunteer in the US who hold me about her visit to a remote village in Kenya. She spoke about how people looked at her shoes in wonder.

ODW suggest that a one day salary contribution is equivalent to about 0.4% of your annual salary.
They are also setting-up partnerships with other organisations, for example: Not for Sale.
The latter focus on deploying innovative solutions to re-abolish slavery in their own backyards and across the globe.

The Interview with David Batstone of Not For Sale below is inspiring and exposes the evil of slavery that is happening in the 21st Century!!!?
It is great that people are now starting these organisations. A start to harmonisation and fairness in terms of the distribution of wealth, respect for human rights and stopping abuse of people.

Together we can overcome.