Imagine what it would be like to live on less than $2 per day.  That is what 40%  of the people in the world do. “Among these 2.7 billion, the poorest 1.1 billion were scraping by on less than one dollar per day” according to” Portfolios of the Poor…How the World’s Poor Live on 2$ a Day“ by Collins, Morduch, Rutherford and Ruthven. 

These numbers are staggering.  I, like most, imagine that all of these poor must live day to day, hand-to-mouth trying only to survive one more day. I can’t even comprehend how anyone could even live for any length of time on so little and yet for two-fifths of our world that is exactly what they do.

What I learned from “Portfolios of the Poor” was astounding and humbling.  ”If you are poor, managing your money well is absolutely central to your life–perhaps more so than any other group….Far from living hand-to-mouth” one of the families studied had built up reserves in six different instruments, ranging from $2 kept at home for minor day-to-day shortfalls to $30 sent for safe-keeping to his parents, $40 lent out to a relative, and $76 in a life insurance savings policy. In addition, Hamid always made sure he had $2 in his pocket to deal with anthing that might befall him…”

This is simply amazing to me.  Like many, this poor family not only survived but they were able to save, borrow, trade and plan for emergencies.  I can’t help but compare this to our own country and the  broken financial systems both large and small that led to our financial crisis.

Where did we take a wrong turn?  When did our ability to manage money deteriorate?  What can we learn from the poorest of the poor to help us take a fresh look at how we live?

My grandfather was a doctor during the Great Depression.  Many of the people that he treated paid him in kind, with everything from deer skins to food.  Trading in this way is also very common among the poor. 

I and many of my fellow Baby Boomers seem to have grown up without a sense of need for managing our money the way our parents and grandparents did, or the poor do today.  What I have realized after reading “Portfolios of the Poor” is not only how money management plays a role in the lives of the poor and how to improve their systems but that I need to be a better financial role model for my children and it is imperative that I instill in them the importance of managing their  own money. 

Isn’t it amazing that a book meant to analyze the financial practices of the poor could actually be a wake-up call for folks like me and you?

Dog’s Eye View Media proudly presents a true-life story straight from today’s headlines.  Shelley Seale’s narrative non-fiction book follows the lives of just such children as those brought to life in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India depicts Shelley’s journey into orphanages and through the streets and slums of India where millions of innocent children live without families.

Slumdog Millionaire is a fictional movie ending with a bizarre twist of fate. However, the reality of the story is that for millions of children in India, the life portrayed in the movie continues beyond the rags-to-riches ending of the film. Today there are 25 million Indian children living without parents, on the streets or in orphanages or other institutional homes – some good, and some bad or corrupt like that portrayed in the movie. Many of these children become victims of trafficking, prostitution and child labor. Slumdog Millionaire shows us a side of India, and a way of life, that hundreds of thousands of children in Mumbai alone struggle to survive every day.

During her three years of writing The Weight of Silence, Shelley has befriended and told the stories of many such children – and has born witness to their struggles first hand. Little did she know how much they would change her life. Their hope and resilience amazed Shelley time and time again; the ability of their spirits to overcome crippling challenges inspired her. Even in the most deprived circumstances they are still kids – they laugh and play, perhaps far less frequently than others; they develop strong bonds and relationships to create family where none exists; and most of all they have an enormous amount of love to give. Foreword by Joan Collins, with endorsements by Geralyn Dreyfous (Executive Producer of Born Into Brothels), Dominique Lapierre (Author of City of Joy), Save The Children, Human Rights Watch and more. Order the book from weightofsilence.wordpress.com and receive an autographed copy and bookmark!

“Amidst the growing prosperity of India, there is an entire generation of parentless children growing up. They are everywhere. They fill the streets, the railway stations, the shanty villages. Some scrounge through trash for newspapers, rags or anything they can sell at traffic intersections. Others, often as young as two or three years old, beg. Many are homeless, overflowing orphanages and other institutional homes to live on the streets where they are extremely vulnerable to being trafficked into child labor if they’re lucky, brothels if they’re not. They are invisible children; their plight goes virtually unnoticed, their voices silenced. The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India is a non-fiction narrative that gives a strong and hopeful voice to its most vulnerable citizens. The stories told in this book do not belong to me. They were given to me as a gift, often because I was the only person who had ever asked.”

Do you have passion and enthusiasm but feel overwhelmed or even lost  when trying to take your first steps in even the most humble efforts to make a difference in your community, your state, or the world?

Then I am asking that you take just one step…Read: The Blue Sweater by Jaqueline Novogratz.

Jaqueline’s life started just like most of ours with perhaps one exception: she knew by the age of ten that she wanted to “Change the World”.  Despite strained finances in her family, she managed to save enough money by being “scrappy and enterprising” to attend University of Virgina.

The Blue Sweater shares her remarkable journey from the young female banker who was sent to Kenya to work at the African Development Bank to founder of  Acumen Fund.

It is a very personal story in which she shares about her efforts and her own personal evolution.  You will cry during some of the  horrifying stories and be filled with hope as you share in her successes.

The one thing I can guarantee is that you will come away inspired.

As Jaqueline writes: “This book is for people who do not seek easy solutions or insist on a singular ideology for the world.  It is for individuals who care less about the amount of money people earn and more about whether they can access basic services and live with freedom and dignity that are their inherent rights as human beings.”

If you look around you right now, do you see a bottle of water or canned soda on your desk? If so, you can save a child’s life.

But what child you ask?  If I respond that it is one of nearly 10 million children that die under the age of 5 each year from causes related to poverty, you will most likely acknowledge this tragedy, take a sip of the natural spring water and let your mind move on to a more interesting blog post.

But, what if I were to introduce you to a little girl named Mira who is dying of starvation. You hold her on your lap, feel the poor little skinny body grasping for every breath. Then I tell you that you can save her life by giving up one bottle of water would you do it? My guess is you would say yes in a heart beat.

This is my own crude way of trying to explain the premise behind the newly released book:  The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty by Peter Singer, a Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.

One of the most common reactions I get when I tell people I am working to raise money for a girls orphanage in Africa is:  Why Africa when there are so many needy folks right here in our community?  As Singer writes ” It would simply not be true to say: ‘I can’t give a thousand dollars to help strangers in Africa, because I am human and humans are  less concerned about distant anonymous strangers than they are about people they know.’”

I happened to hear Peter Singer interviewed a few days ago on NPR and was so struck by his words that as soon as I got home I ordered the book.  This is the first time I had heard such an insightful argument for the need for all people to give, particularly to the poverty stricken in Third World Countries.  He proposes a “new public standard for a minimum that we should expect people to give to an organization helping helping people living in extreme poverty.”

One of his most powerful points is that if you can afford to buy bottled water when you have perfectly good tap water, then you are not giving enough and, in fact, you may be “leaving a child to die, a child you could have saved”.

Finally, thanks to Peter Singer, I have an answer not just for those who ask me this question but for why others should help efforts like my beloved Mothers Fighting For Others’ “Inspire the Child“.

This tale of life and love in the slums of Mumbai alternates between heartbreak and triumph. The story follows two brothers who live in abject poverty, whose lives are made even more difficult after they are orphaned. Following them throughout their childhood and into early adulthood – along with their friend Latika – we see them fight against exploiters, brothel owners, child abusers, and even each other, in their struggle to survive.

I spent a day as an “Un-Tourist” in these very slums of Mumbai – a place called Dharavi. I went with Deepa Krishnan, owner of tour operator Mumbai Magic. Immersing yourself in the real lives of ordinary people in a place traveled to is a unique experience, and one that can truly bring the spirit and culture of a place alive to the traveler.

Slumdog Millionaire captures this brilliantly and is a fantastic movie, that caused me at times to want to applaud and at times to cringe and shut my eyes. Despite its upbeat ending and “rags to riches” Hollywood/Bollywood mechanism, Slumdog Millionaire shows us a side of India, and a way of life, that millions of children struggle to survive every day. Orphaning, abandonment, homelessness, begging, working, being exploited and abused…this is real, daily life for hundreds of thousands of children in Mumbai alone.

The actors who play the characters at their youngest ages are themselves Hindi-speaking street kids, discovered by casting director Loveleen Tandan. This fact reminded me of the 1988 movie Salaam Bombay, a movie by Mira Nair that was also about street kids in Mumbai, and which featured a cast of actual street children. Nair went on to start a foundation, the Salaam Baalak Trust, with proceeds from the film, and today SBT assists thousands of street children in Mumbai and Delhi. I interviewed Nair’s mother, Praveen, in my book The Weight of Silence; Praveen started SBT with her daughter Mira.

Salaam Bombay has a grittier, more realistic feel without the rags-to-riches ending. While I love the Slumdog Millionaire movie, while watching it there did resonate in me a sense of reinforcement of just such fantasies that lead kids into street life in Mumbai all the time. While traveling India and researching for my book, I interviewed many social workers and child advocates who told me that thousands of children run away from home and catch a train to “Bombay” with fantasies of the movies or making it big in the glamorous city filling their head. Sadly, most of them fall prey to just such exploiters as those found in both these movies: traffickers, begging rings, brothel owners or factory recruiters. Many of them remain living in the railway stations in which they arrive, begging or scratching out a living by sorting through trash for recycling or other dangerous endeavors. You can read my story here about my day spent with just such railway boys in Mumbai.

The lesson I would like to leave about this movie is: please see it. Enjoy it. Revel with these kids when luck comes there way. But please, please – don’t forget the millions of others whose lives continue in poverty, abuse and despair.

What Can You Do?

• Go to the “How Can You Help” section of Salaam Baalak Trust
• Read about child trafficking and what you can do at Oasis India’s website
• Donate to Childline India, the hotline for homeless children or those in trouble
  

However, it’s the subject of one particular book which has me sheepishly explaining the incredibly obvious contradiction of the two books that I’m about to pay for at the check-out counter. Their titles are…”The Middle-Class Millionaire; The Rise of the New Rich and How They Are Changing America….and the book that somehow gripped me while browsing through the aisles. It is entitled…”Affluenza; The All-Consuming Epidemic.”

The clerk glances at the two titles and then struck by the polar opposite nature of the purchases, picks them up and examines them more thoroughly. Finally he offers this explanation…”Well, M’am…when you’re rich, you’ll know how to avoid Affluenza.” I nod in muted agreement…doubtful.

However, it is this book…the one I didn’t go to the store to buy that consumes my attention throughout the weekend. Affluenza is defined as:

n. a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety, and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.

1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Jones.

2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by the dogged pursuit of the American Dream.

The book Affluenza is like a spirited conversation. An engaging and convicting look at what has transpired to us (and within us ) as we have doggedly pursued the American Dream…of more, more & more. It’s a wake-up call that brings into sharp focus the manner in which excessive consumerism has created a nightmare in which most of us are still sleepwalking.

Written with a wry wit and clear eyed analysis, this book offers a comprehensive diagnosis: Starting with Shopping Fever, the Rash of Bankruptcies, Swollen Expectation, Chronic Congestion, the Stress of Excess, Community Chills, An Ache for Meaning, Resource Exhaustion, Industrial Diarrhea and eventually Dissatisfaction Guaranteed, it gently prods us to see our over-drive efforts for improvement at all costs in an entirely new light.

I admit to being mesmerized and at the same time somewhat disheartened. Perhaps it is the sinking realization that one can be on the right path, yet in so many ways miss the reason for the journey in the first place. It is a sobering thing to recognize that the clothes we wear may have cost someone their life. Or that the fruit that is available all year round in the grocery store is cheap and plentiful because of exploitative labor.

As a real estate agent, our growing data-bank of millions of homes which remain unsold and are in foreclosure or shortsale remind us that this disease plays for keeps….Affluenza has real implications and disastrous results if left unchecked. It is literally destroying the financial welfare of millions of Americans even as it consumes their savings and now their personal homes.

But, the book is not a treatise on hopelessness. It seems that many of us are “waking up” to the fact that our priorities are out of whack. We’ve been focusing on the wrong things. In fact, things in and of themselves do not have the ability to provide meaning.

Many “rat-race” refugees are seeking refuge through a different route in life. An empowered path which starts by acknowledging that we’ve been living with a skewed framework of values. A path which seeks restoration within and revitalization in relationship without. An understanding which knows that when I am my brother’s keeper, I have not only gained a brother…I have indeed found myself again.

If you’d like to explore this condition further, check out this site where you can diagnosis, understand and find some proven methods to combat the disease. It’s guaranteed to change your perspective!

To Learn more about the Story of Stuff, click on the link or on the picture. It’s an incredible story!

Picture is courtesy of: debaird’s photostream

I ask myself this question all the time. Most commonly we look for the cheapest deal, the highest quality, and the best service for our money. We must fed, clothe, house and entertain our busy, demanding families on a budget, and we don’t always have the time, or space of mind, to give the topic another thought. In a society based on materialism, it’s hard to make sense of our purchasing options and the power behind them.

Perhaps at this, the start of a new year, we might examine our consumer habits with a broader perspective. Who makes our goods? Who makes the toys we buy our own children? The IPod for our spouses? The food for our Christmas feast? Are they paid well? Do they get benefits, such as medical and dental insurance? Which companies maintain environmentally sound facilities? Do they protect our natural resources? Are they active participants in their surrounding communities?

Which companies can we trust to practice responsibility towards the impact their very presence creates? And as a consumer, how do you find the right answers if you are only beginning to ask the right questions?
Well my friends, here’s a start: A simple book, small enough to fit in a purse or thrown in a glove compartment for easy reference. The Better World Shopping Guide ranks almost every product available to the consumer. Did you read that right? Is it really that simple? Yes. The following is a quote taken directly from www.BetterWorldShopper.com.

“The only comprehensive guide for socially and environmentally responsible consumers available, this book ranks every product on the shelf from A to F so you can quickly tell the “good guys” from the “bad guys” — turning your grocery list into a powerful tool to change the world. Representing over 15 years of distilled research, data is organized into the most common product categories including coffee, energy bars, computers, gasoline, clothing, banks, cars, water and more.”

The Better World Shopping Guide rankings are based on five key values and a letter grade based on how they comply with them. They are as follows:

After 5 years of intensive research and using 20 years of collective data, author Dr. Jones has come up with a wonderfully comprehensive system of rating goods and services produced by companies “relative to its competitors in the same product category.” These range from baby care products, car manufacturers, dairy alternative manufacturers to the newest category, fast food restaurants. Follow this link to check out where your favorites stand among the rankings.

The best part? This book goes for less than your favorite best seller. Purchased from the website, you can be the proud, and newly educated owner of the Better World Shopping Guide for only $10.00! The more books you purchase, the more your order will be discounted. Buy in bulk, save money, and give the most eye opening book to your friends and family!

To some it may sound inconvenient to carry a book around in their pocket, which is exactly why the Better World Shopping Guide has been converted into software for you IPod. For $5.00, you can download the entire book and it’s wealth of information onto your IPod, where you can access it at anytime, in any circumstance. Becoming aware of your world consumer power has never been so easy!

On a personal note, I can attest to the difficulties owning this book may cause. I know, believe me. Especially when shopping for food, there are inner conflicts that occur. A sense of responsibility is often compromised for the best bargain or in my case, the lowest calories count. But try for a moment to push this fear aside and consider that owning this book is your first small step. It is a doorway into an awareness that can be applied to perhaps not all, but some areas of your life. Whether it inspires you to purchase a car from an environmentally aware company, or clothing made by employees who are well paid and work in safe environments, your small choices will make a difference. This book is not an “all or nothing” situation. It is a step in the right direction, and in some areas of your life, steps I know you can take.

I will leave you with words from the Better World Shopper website, words I could not have come up with myself, and words I hope will inspire you to view at your spending power in a whole new light.

“Money is power. And wherever large amounts of money collect, so also new centers of power form. The latest historical manifestation of this is the modern corporation. Make no mistake, these new power centers are not democracies. We don’t vote for the CEO’s or their policies (unless we are: rich enough to be significant shareholders, informed enough to know what’s going one, and compassionate enough to care about more than just personal profit), yet our destinies are increasingly in their hands.

As these power centers shift, we must shift our own voices if we wish to be heard. As citizens, on average, we might vote once ever 4 years, if at all. As consumers, we vote every single day with the purest form of power…money. The average American family spends around $18,000 each year on goods and services. Think of it as casting 18,000 votes every year for the kind of world you want to live in. Use this site to take back your power.”

This child’s eyes tell the story. The story of atrocities that are happening right now as I type. These atrocities are happening in Darfur, in the country of Sudan. You can see HERE on a map of where this is occurring. Over 400,000 have been killed two million men, women and children have been displaced. This is what GENOCIDE looks like.

The Numbers Are Overwhelming.

Let us look at that number again. There are approximately 395,000 people living in the city of Oakland, CA. Now, let’s imagine the military coming in and killing everyone in the city. That’s what 400,000 deaths look like. There are 2,016,582 people living in Houston, Texas. Let’s imagine the entire city migrating towards the Mexican border. The ENTIRE City. That’s what 2,000,000 displaced people look like.

This Is Tragic.

It is our job as human beings to stand up and scream it from the rooftops. This should not be happening in 2007. So what are we going to do about it?

Words Are Inspiring.

After I read the inside flap, I knew I could help. It says,

“The book outlines six inspiring strategies that every one of us can adopt to help bring about change: Raise Awareness, Raise Funds, Write A letter, Call For Divestment, Start an Organization, and Lobby the Government. Simple, but powerful. No personal action is too small. For the sanctity of the human race, it is imperative that we not stand idly by as innocent civilians in Darfur and other war zones continue to be victims of unthinkable brutality. TAKE A STAND. Raise your voice. Find out how you can make a difference. The time to act is now.”

So I started reading it today. I hope you do too. You can find it HERE on Amazon.

*population numbers were taken from Answers.com