Consistent and Collective Micro Giving Will Help End Global Poverty

We are the antidote to the disease of poverty and suffering on this planet. By we, I mean the everyday, ordinary, local you and me citizens of earth.

Cities and countries are made up of hundreds, thousands, millions and billions of ordinary people who have more ready and active resource and influence then they realise. With exception of a few — and I mean a very few apathetic people, most of us want to make a difference. We want to be better caretakers of our planet and we want to help enrich the pulse of our collective humanity. We’re not okay with injustice and suffering but the sheer magnitude and apparent distance has immobilised us to a state of acceptance and justified irresponsibility.

There’s too much poverty, I didn’t cause it, I can barely feed myself, I have a family, why don’t they work like the rest of us, why don’t their governments to something. I don’t know how to help, it’s too far away…all such reasons are convenient yet valid excuses that we find too easy to use, in place of having to move beyond our collective apathy or indifference.

Changing the planet, be it, ending poverty (food, water, shelter, education, healthcare) is possible in our lifetime. According to the UN, Covid 19 has set the 2030 SDG target of ending global poverty back ten years. This target cannot be met by governments, philanthropists or billionaires alone. More than ever, humanity needs to lean in collectively to end global poverty because as we’ve borne witness this year, natural disasters and a global pandemics has play no favourites. It is estimated that 83 to 132 million people are at risk of being undernourished and the most vulnerable being children.

So, if our governments and the UN and the Oprah’s and Bill Gates and Bono’s of this world are not enough, how could everyday ordinary people possibly be the answer? We become the answer by contributing equally, collectively and consistently; not beyond our means or to the detriment of our own livelihood, but by simply giving One Dollar each, Once a Year, Every Year. You read correctly. Now, indulge me as I use the population of Australia and basic grade school math to illustrate this principle.

There are approximately 24 million Australians. Now, if half of that population contributed just one dollar each, once a year; In just one day that would be twelve million dollars raised without anyone having to go broke. Now let’s expand this illustration globally — if three billion citizens of earth collectively contributed one dollar each, once a year, in just one day three Billion Dollars would be raised and injected towards ending global poverty. Not all of us can afford to give one dollar a day or forty dollars a month to a charity or cause but most of us, even those of us on unemployment benefits can afford to give just one dollar, once a year.

It’s that simple. This is how we the ordinary people can play our part in global ending poverty.

I’m a mother, and like many parents I want my son to grow up in a world where he doesn’t have to wait to be smarter or richer or older to make a difference. That he can know that his one life and resource; no matter how small, can be powerful force of change and that together with others, his world can be changed for the better. It is this simple desire married with the simple idea I had eleven years ago that has inspired the birth of the We Plus You Project.

We Plus You is a local grassroots project that exists to empower and mobilize ordinary school age students and schools to collectively give towards helping to end global poverty.

Our mission is to partner with as many schools as possible who commit to running our $1 Campaign, which involves every single student, teacher and staff members giving one dollar, once a year towards helping to end global poverty. It may very well be too late for us grown-ups to buy into an idea like this, but if our children can grasp it and carry it into their future — this world will be a better place.

Ten years of being involved in and running various campaigns to help end global poverty has taught me that it can only be achieved by a consistent and collective global approach.

We don’t have to millionaires or wait for the billionaires, governments or charities to do it. We, the ordinary people can each be an equal and active part of ending global poverty, one person, one dollar and one year at a time.