Poverty

Poverty is the shortage of basic essentials for a quality life and the lack of access to opportunities such as education and employment. Poverty is a harsh reality in the countries that Food For The Poor serves. Hunger, homelessness, unclean drinking water, no education, illness and no access to health care are all aspects of poverty.

A fear for the future, struggling daily to survive, or having your child die because they had no food is the reality of poverty. Men and women, young and old, it affects everyone with no prejudice against whom it targets.  Children, helpless and desperate, are among the victims. According to State of Food Insecurity in the World, FAO, 2008, a child dies every five seconds because of hunger and the related causes.

Food For The Poor provides international relief for 17 countries throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, assisting in the aid and prevention of poverty.

Providing the poor with long-term, sustainable solutions to poverty is a priority at Food For The Poor. To accomplish this, we have developed several micro-enterprise programs that help the poor help themselves. Some of these projects include:

• Fishing villages in Jamaica and Haiti
• Agricultural research and training centers in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Jamaica
• Tilapia farms in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Haiti
• Animal rearing projects
• Woodworking shops
• Sewing enterprises
• Automobile repair shops
• Bakeries
• Women’s centers in Guatemala and Honduras

These skills training and micro-enterprise projects not only help provide the poor with income; they also restore hope and human dignity. In many cases, those receiving help will in turn help others in their community.

Some of the areas in which Food For The Poor serves are experiencing the following circumstances:

Unequal distribution of wealth and rapid population growth within the nation has given Guatemala one of the highest poverty rates in Latin America. More than 75 percent of the national population in Guatemala lives below the poverty line, and the extent of poverty is even more severe among the rural and indigenous populations.

According to UNICEF.org, in Nicaragua, one of every three children has some degree of chronic malnutrition with a large percentage suffering from severe malnutrition. Shortage of food, clean water, sanitation and education make Nicaragua a difficult place to survive for destitute families.

In Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, an estimated 80 percent of Haitians live in poverty. Many areas lack clean water, sanitation systems, access to basic medicine and only an estimated 50 percent of the population possess an education.

On the island of Jamaica, the rural poor have difficult lives, many agriculture workers have to grow their own crops for survival. The poor have suffered from the long decline in the amount of social services provided to Jamaicans. Access to sanitation facilities, clean water and food is difficult to obtain.

- March 2010