~Getting to Know Your International Contacts~

Unfortunately, I have not been able to establish any international contacts so I had to do the alternative assignment.  Completing this weeks assignment has really caused me to take a good look at the world around me.  In one way or another poverty affects more families than I ever could have imagined.  The effects of poverty is detrimental to all members of the family and can have lasting effects.  CHIP states "Today's poor children are all too often tomorrow's poor parents. Poverty can be passed on from generation to generation affecting the long-term health, wellbeing and productivity of families and of society as a whole. Tackling childhood poverty is therefore critical for eradicating poverty and injustice world-wide".

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT INDIA
India has an estimated population of 1.03 billion citizens with 260.2 million of those living in poverty.  Close to 400 million of the population are between 0-18 years.   About 62 million children under the age of five are malnourished and 34 percent of new-borns are significantly underweight. Important achievements have been made in health and education.   But India still accounts for 20 per cent of the world's out-of-school children. It has the largest numbers of working children in the world, with nearly a third of children below 16 years working.

India has three main types of anti-poverty programs run by the central government, rural employment creation and infrastructure development programs; self-employment; and food subsidy programs.  
 
According to CHIP "Over 600 million children world-wide live in absolute poverty - an estimated 1 in 4. In many countries, rates are much higher with over 60 percent of children living in households with incomes below international poverty lines".  Those numbers are devastating and they will more than likely increase if we do not take preventive measures.