Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Blog Action Day 2008


So I first found out about today's cause through my Social Media class professor. I knew that today was an important day to take action and that blogging is a great way of doing it. Today is a perfect example of the concept of Power of 1%. Each person just contributing content to this special cause to demonstrate how important poverty is and that something must be done to change it.
I'm not going to say that I'm truly well-informed about the issue of poverty, other than the obvious that it exists, so I decided to research on it. I started off by going to the Blog Action Day official website and was immediately impacted by their mission statement. It says so much in just a few words.

What is Blog Action Day?

Today thousands of bloggers will unite to discuss a single issue - poverty. We aim to raise awareness, initiate action and to shake the web!

It simply amazing just what my blog, as well as thousands, maybe even million of bloggers can do with our computer. Poverty, the topic of this year is important and deserves to get the proper attention it deserves. Although I am one that does not experience it as much as others do in other parts of the nation and world, I know that something must be done to cease it. So I joined the cause and decided to blog on such an important day. Together we can do something about poverty.
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When I began doing my research, I found some shocking facts like:

About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations. This is one person every three and a half seconds.

It is children who die most often.

-The Cycle of Poverty-
There is plenty of food in the world for everyone. The problem is that hungry people are trapped in severe poverty. They lack the money to buy enough food to nourish themselves. Being constantly malnourished, they become weaker and often sick. This makes them increasingly less able to work, which then makes them even poorer and hungrier.

Then I began researching information about our city of Austin and found some interesting information.

Approximately 200,000, or 20%, of Travis County residents are classified as "working poor" by the Texas Department of Human Services.

The annual income needed for a Travis County family of four without employee sponsored health insurance to "afford" to live in the Austin area is $53,080. That's 257% above the Federal poverty level.

Austin continues to have the highest cost of living in the state of Texas, exceeding housing costs in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Fort Worth.


Today is the day to get informed. Today is the day to take action.
So TAKE ACTION!!! DO YOUR PART! Let's do something to change our community.
Together it can happen.

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