The Forgotten International
The Forgotten International
San Francisco, CA
United States
info
Who We Serve
The Forgotten
“Forgotten people” can be found all across the world. They are often women and children who have very little and live at the edge of life and death. They are people who may never themselves escape poverty, but with some help may give their children a future free from the harsh circumstances they have always known.
Most often they live in countries without safety nets and are surrounded by others who have accepted the notion that an entire class of people can be treated as societal waste. As a result, they become invisible and are often left to die.
The men, women and children living on the margins of society are the very people TFI serves.
You can help as well:
Many Indian families live like this, in make-shift tents on a roadside, surviving either by begging or doing work others refuse to do. They make barely enough money to survive the day, and every day brings new challenges. In years when there are floods or droughts, war or famine, or if a parent falls ill, there is little in the way of resources for the poorest of the poor, and life can get extremely difficult. As a consequence, it can be said that poverty is the cause of much of the world's suffering.
Some Facts on India:
Of India's 1.1 billion people, 250 million live in the type of poverty described above. The United Nations calls this "extreme poverty."
In India the caste system is very much ingrained in the culture. At present 16% of the population, about 170 million people, are Dalits, also known as "untouchables." They are among the world's poorest people.
Poverty Facts from around the World:
850 million people go hungry every day.
29,158 children under the age of five die each day from mostly preventable causes.
3,900 children die each day because of lack of access to safe water and adequate sanitation.
536,000 women die each year from complications due to pregnancy and childbirth.
For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:
- 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
- 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in5);
- 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7);
- 180 million work in the worst forms of child labor;
- 140 million have never attended school, and
- 2 million, mostly girls, are trafficked and exploited in the sex industry.
Information obtained from UNICEF, 2007
The Forgotten International
San Francisco, CA
United States
info
