#3 Why SAWA focuses on the poorest countries

SAWA theme: Extreme Poverty

Poverty exists all over the world – in every country, and every city. But extreme poverty reserves its clutches for the people of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries. It is estimated that approximately 1 billion people in the world today live on less than $1 a day. Those living in extreme poverty are literally ‘the poorest of the poor’, and lack access to the most basic of human needs – such as food, clean water, proper shelter, clothing, medication, sanitation, and education. Extreme poverty brings along with it a list of other environmental and health problems. For example, the lack of clean drinking water is the number one reason for why 50% of Africans suffer from water related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea.

Tackling the issue of extreme poverty is a huge task, as it is a multifaceted issue, but change starts in each country with those courageous and inspiring individuals who, through their leadership and vision, create hope in seemingly hopeless situations. Their ability to create positive change – whether it be through providing a safe community environment for orphaned children (as the Fundación Niña Maria does in Columbia), or training the orphaned youth in Rwanda in employable skills so that they can support their siblings (as ASOLATE does) – is a testament to the strength of the human spirit.

SAWA chooses to focus its attention on the poorest countries of the world not only because the people there live in the harshest of human conditions and are in the most need, but because the stories of the individuals there who, despite everything, can and do gather the strength to lead, to give hope, to provide healing to their communities are the most inspiring of all. If they, who have next to nothing can, out of sheer determination, passion, and vision, create positive changes, then surely we can too.

And so SAWA continues to search out and give voice to those heroes whose stories remind us that anything is possible as long as there is someone to imagine the possibilities. After all, “The First Step To Better Times Is To Imagine Them.”

“There is absolutely

No inevitability

As long as there is a willingness

To contemplate what it happening”

– Marshall McLuhan