Despite the luxuries many Canadians and world citizens take for granted, more than 1.2 billion people currently live in abject poverty. Across the world, more than 800 million people go to bed hungry and 50,000 people die each day due to poverty-related causes. Even in Canada, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, more than a million people, many of them children, live in poverty.

 

The challenge of global poverty is not simply going to disappear. It is an issue that humanity, as a whole, must undertake. Poverty is a gross violation of human rights and it is our responsibility as global citizens to take action and make a difference.

 

"Poverty: a human condition characterized by the sustained or chronic deprivation of the resources, capabilities, choices, security and power necessary for the enjoyment of an adequate standard of living and other civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights."

http://www.unhchr.ch/development/poverty-02.html