World Orphans is a great web site that gives a break down to how many orphans are in the world. 143 million! That is half of the people in the United States, what if one out of every two persons in the US was a child living on the streets? Not only that, they people living on the streets are under the age of 15! I think that would be the biggest issue in this political campaign that is raging around us. I recently watched the Saddleback interviews and both candidate's were surprised by the amount of orphans worldwide, one of the candidate's even has an adopted daughter. Neither one had a clear idea what to do about it. Why isn't this an issue? Why don't we think about, "the least of these"?
William and Amy have been married for almost 10 years. They have three children Sam, Georgia, and Lucy and are anxiously awaiting their fourth who currently resides somewhere in Ethiopia. They have no pets, nor will they ever again. (So says William)
• 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old
• 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
• Coffee prices (Ethiopia’s only major export) fell 40-60% from 1998-2002.
• Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)
• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000.
• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school.
• In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocked without any major seafaring ports.
• In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)
• One in six children die before their fifth birthday
• Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa
• The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years
• There are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia.
• 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)