Do We Really Care?

 

He stands with his head down, cloaked in a threadbare T-shirt and cotton pants held precariously in place with a piece of twine. His eyes stare vacantly at the steady stream of traffic that moves pass him. When the traffic lights turn from green to red, he begins his slow walk from car to car. With one hand resting on his slim frame at his hollow stomach, and the other arm outstretched, the figure asks quietly for spare change at each car window. “Please, I am hungry,” he says. The boy must be no more than ten years old. His request is ignored by most. Many wind up their windows. Others pretend not to see him.

 

Let’s wind back the clock. The date is 10 December 1948, the Second World War has concluded, and the venue is the Palais de Chaillot in Paris. A landmark declaration has been passed, and it’s being touted as an event that will change humanity. Breed a populous that will live, the enviable position, of living free from want.
 

The declaration is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). A United Nations adopted statement signed by forty-eight countries, and at the time hailed as the “first global expression of rights to which all human beings are entitled.”

 

Now, let’s move to present day -  2010. A time where no less than half the world’s population struggles to get by on a pitiful $2.50 a day. Here’s another statistic the era can be proud of – every six seconds a child dies from hunger-related causes.
 

And as for the advent of an equal world; just on 400 million children live without access to clean water and over 1.6 billion people live without access to electricity.

 

It’s scary stuff. So what went wrong? What happened to that world living free from want envisioned in UDHR? What happened to that united front determined to bring about change?

 

Earlier this year, speaking at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, former U.S president Bill Clinton dared to utter that perhaps well intended money could be better spent. “In too many countries too much money goes to pay for too many people to got to too many meetings, get on too many airplanes,’ he said. He then went further: “keep in mind that every dollar we waste today puts a life at risk.”

 

Now there are several reasons why 62 years after a promise to build a world free from want, we have a world of anything but. Clinton argues that money is going the wrong way. Others argue that greed will always win.

 

So can everyday people, who don’t turn away from the boy saying he is hungry, really make a difference?
 

Last week human rights champion Albie Sachs put his skepticism aside and lent his support to a campaign to mark International Human Rights Day. The campaign is Barefoot Against Poverty, and its organisers, Every Human Has Rights, is calling on people around the globe to go barefoot on December 10 in a sign of solidarity for human rights.

 

Sachs: "At first I felt a bit awkward about the whole thing. The idea is that people who have shoes should take them off to remember those who haven't got shoes," he said. "I must say the minute I took my shoes off -- I was wearing Crocs -- and my feet touched the ground, I felt the tar and it was terrific. It was like I had direct contact with the world. It was not a false mimicking of the poor. It was just the sense of aligning myself with all humanity with this notion of going barefoot."

 

It seems to me that the Barefoot Against Poverty campaign is about one thing – do we really care? Do we see that boy at the traffic lights?
 

Lets see who cares.
 

To find out more about the campaign visit www.barefootgainstpoverty.org